


Marvel's Thirteen

by agentx13 (rebelle_elle)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen, More characters to come, netflix show, sharon carter month
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-03-29 09:39:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 70,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13924452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelle_elle/pseuds/agentx13
Summary: Sharon Carter is a fugitive. She passes her time by tracking down SHIELD agents who still haven't been found after the infodump. One of those cases dredges up the past in unexpected and terrible ways. On top of that, Sharon uncovers a Hydra cell only to discover that they have a plan to either rule the world or destroy it in the attempt. Just in case that isn't difficult enough, the US government has figured out her connection to the fugitive Avengers, and someone has stolen her aunt's files - files that might hold the key to saving the world.With something even larger on the way drawing away her potential resources, Sharon is forced to call on people she hasn't spoken to in years and rely on new allies to take on an ever-growing number of enemies drawn in by Hydra's message of hatred and power.





	1. Noor Inayat Khan i

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, all! Welcome to my latest work - and yes, it's almost complete. I've got all but five chapters written, and those are plotted out.
> 
> As such, I'll be posting at least every five days, to give me time to edit chapters to make them more canon-compliant and brush them up. There should be a slow and steady stream of chapters!
> 
> The idea of this fic came from grammpa at tumblr. I hope they find some semblance of their gifset of a Marvel series here!
> 
> A couple more notes:
> 
> The fic is meant to read like a Netflix series. As such, music plays a role (I don't have an orchestra or composer, so I'm using a soundtrack more along the lines of _Baby Driver_ ). I've included links to YouTube videos for the music when it's applicable, to help you get in the mood, and will also try to list the songs that appear in each chapter in case a link breaks. Feel free to suggest songs!
> 
> Marvel's Netflix shows tend to be rather dark. And I'm going to warn you now, no matter who your favorite character is - even if it's Sharon - there might be bad things in store. But I'm a sucker for a happy ending, so this is my way of reassuring you that I will try to do right by all the characters.
> 
> This is by far the most challenging fic I've ever written. For one thing, I'm editing the work to make it canon compliant as movies/shows come out. For another, this fic deals with Issues. If you like reading about white nationalists getting their asses kicked to music, you might like this fic! Unfortunately, that means white nationalists have to exist in the first place. I can't apologize enough for that. But yay for hitting them?
> 
> The format also means the fic is going to be long - thirteen chapters, broken into four-part installments (I figured you wouldn't want to read 40+ page chapters), so... 52 chapters total.
> 
> Basically, if anything causes you any concern, or you have any questions, feel free to ask. I'll do my best to keep on track of comments.
> 
> One last note - the story takes place in early/mid-March, 2018.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Songs:  
> George Thorogood, "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer"  
> ZZ Top, "La Grange"

#  _Noor Inayat Khan_

_Even before World War II broke out, Noor Inayat Khan saw the growing threat of the Nazis and the need to stand up to them in any way possible. She joined the Special Operations Executive, where her training included weaponry and mock interrogations. While half of her instructors said she would make a fine agent, the other half said she was too skittish, too shy, too afraid, that she was afraid of violence and guns, and that she would never succeed as a spy. But Noor was the person they had who was fluent in French and in radio operations, and the SOE had no choice but to send her into the field._

_She became a radio operator in Paris and lasted three times longer than any other previous agent in the position. When given the option to return home, she refused, saying she would only return when they had someone to replace her. A neighbor reported her to the gestapo for a cash reward; the neighbor didn’t know if Noor was a spy and, since she got paid either way, didn’t care. Noor fought hard enough that it took five men to take her into custody, and once imprisoned, she made three escape attempts. Throughout the entirety of her captivity, she never gave the gestapo accurate information about the Allies and even successfully managed to make them waste time and resources following up on some of her false leads. Classified as “highly dangerous” by the gestapo, she was transferred to an execution camp and was tortured before executed. It is believed her last word was "Liberté"._

Nevada  
March 2018  
([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97ECZMvbLxg))

Jack’s Place was a one-story dive bar on Highway 75. “Dilapidated” was too kind a descriptor; it was full of dirt, neon lights, crevices full of dead insects and rodents that had never been cleaned. The air around the bar always smelled of stale beer and urine; inside, it smelled like everyone washed themselves with crystals. Jack’s was the only building within five miles on either side, and the only gas station within ten; most people in desperate need of gas saw the line of motorcycles, the leather-clad patrons, and the collection of broken beer bottles outside and decided to keep going in hopes of finding a nicer place down the road. The maximum occupancy of Jack’s was 100, by order of the fire commissioner. Currently, 162 people were packed inside, crushed together between the bar and the pool tables and jostling for room at the barstools. The reason for the crowd was simple: Word had gotten out that a weapons sale was going down. 

One person in the throng was there for a different reason.

Everyone inside was armed, most with more than one gun or knife. Many of them, legally, weren’t allowed to have any guns, but it was a point of pride for them to ignore such trivialities. After all, what sort of self-respecting criminal respected the law?

Inside, the horde was jammed so tightly that there was little movement; small scuffles breaking out as people worked their way from the bar to the pool tables where the guns were displayed and back again. The only thing keeping people from shooting someone was the knowledge that whoever shot first would then be killed in the chaotic shootout that would doubtlessly follow.

Most people would hesitate to be in the same state as Jack’s. There was no telling how many people had died on the premisis, but asking could get a person killed.

The tall table closest to the center of the room was the only table in the building with any space around it. Four people sat there undisturbed by those around them. Three of them, two women and a man, lazed on stools while the fourth, another man, almost looked like he was holding court. 

The two women sat beside each other. One, going by the name of Irma Kruhl, had straight black hair, part of it held up in a bouffant and the rest flowing halfway down her back. She wore black pants and wore a tight, black leather motorcycle jacket. Her leather boots came up to her knee. Her makeup was pristine, with heavy black eyeliner, heavy eyelashes a touch of blush, and nude-colored lipstick. She wore large gold hoop earrings, several bracelets, and several rings. Her clothes were tight enough that everyone in the bar could clearly see that she was lithe, fit. She sipped at her beer intermittently, seeming content to while away the time at the table.

The other woman, known as Lippy, had brazen curls, her hair far too red and bright to be real. She wore low-rise jeans and a thin white tank that did nothing to hide the skin underneath. A tattoo of a snake wound its way up her arm to a shattered skull on her shoulder, where the snake crawled out of one of the eye sockets. Even sitting on the barstool, she had to lift her elbows almost to her shoulders to rest them on the table. She was thin enough that her elbows that the skin stretched over the bone. She was obviously drunk to everyone but herself. 

Across from them were the two men. The one beside Irma didn’t look like he belonged at Jack’s; he didn’t particularly look like he belonged outside an office or one-bedroom apartment. He was pale and thin, his dark hair balding. His lack of muscle mass suggested he wasn’t a fan of physical exersion, a suggestion his wire-rim glasses did nothing to dispell. He wore a too-large leather jacket. He looked around the bar and nodded to people he didn’t know as if he were just as much in power as the man behind him; the air around him shimmered with the fulfilment of a childhood dream. It was obvious to everyone but himself that the only reason he was there at all was because of how expensive his leather jacket was, not to mention the rest of his clothes or the brand-new bike out front. Despite his weeks of coming to Jack’s and spending money to impress the bikers, the coolest name he’d ever thought to give the bouncer was “Tommy.”

The last member at the table was the leader. He held court by sitting straight up, his feet propped up on the barstool rungs and his hands resting on his thighs. He was completely bald except for a few gray hairs, and a small gold hoop decorated his left ear lobe. He wore jeans, boots, and a T-shirt. His knuckles were scarred, and some of his faded tattoos had jagged skin underneath to show where he’d hidden scars, or white marks running through them to indicate he’d gotten hurt after he’d gotten inked. He was proud of his police record and didn’t hide it, only deciding to withhold details about his so-called accomplishments based on how much he trusted his audience. His name was Len Bruggard; he was suspected of killing over twenty people. SHIELD had come across him more than a decade ago and had planted someone at the bar to track the illegal arms ring Len ran. 

As they talked, Lippy leaned over the table, her hand reaching for him. Len covered her forearm with his much larger arm. The gesture was instinctive but possessive. Seeing it, Tommy set his hand on the back of the Irma’s chair.

“You’re looking for who?” Len took a swig of his beer, eying Irma with distaste.

“Shawn Hawkins,” she said. She kept her hands in sight on the table, fingers playing with the condensation on the bottle. “He owes me money.”

He set his bottle on the table hard enough that several of the men and women standing around glanced at the table. Even after they looked away, they remained tense. In contrast, Lippy lifted her head, blinked at everyone, then relaxed and let her head fall back into her arms. “That so.”

“Yep.”

“And you said your name is Irma? Irma Kuhl?”

“Kruhl,” she corrected.

Len took a deep breath from his nostrils. “Hawkins. You know he used to be SHIELD?” He spat on the floor, and others who heard did the same despite not showing. There was no indication that they were following the conversation at all. No one spoke to anyone at the table; no one even looked at them.

No one at the table indicated they noticed anyone around them except for Tommy, who’s head turned to the surrounding crowd like a nervous bird’s. “Irma,” he murmured in warning. He began tapping his foot nervously against his stool. “Maybe we should let Mr. Bruggard enjoy his beer in peace?” He grinned nervously at Len.

Irma held up a hand to silence him. “I said Hawkins owes me money. I didn’t say we were friends. Tell me where he is, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Must be a lot of money.”

“Enough that I’m hunting him down, SHIELD agent be damned.”

Len was silent for a long time, tapping his finger against his glass with a thick, calloused finger. “You talk like a cop,” he said at last.

Irma smiled thinly. “I’m not a cop.”

“Exactly what a cop would say.”

He held up a fist, and all conversation fell silent as everyone in the bar turned toward them. “Trust is a valuable commodity these days,” he announced. “You live by it, you die by it, you kill for it. And I don’t trust you.” He downed the rest of his drink. “Seems to me,” he said, “I got nothing to lose by killing you.”

“Irma?” Tommy sounded more urgent now, and a little scared.

Irma ignored him and reclined in her seat. She grabbed her beer from the table and gave Len a hint of a smile. “You’ll lose people.”

Len chuckled. “You really think you’d have the chance to kill anybody here before we kill you, Irma? Oops. I mean _cop._ ”

Irma rolled her eyes. “All I want is a location. And for you to stop calling me cop. The name’s Irma. Irma Kruhl.” She swigged her beer.

“You know, I know Irma Kruhl,” Len said. “She’s blonde. About a head shorter than you. She’s dealt weapons to us before. I’m gonna guess that’s why you took her place.”

Irma made a face. “So you met her, huh?”

He nodded. 

She finished her beer. “It’s a common name,” she said jokingly.

He made a gun with his fingers and mimed shooting at her. “Sure, it is.”

Around them, everyone drew guns. Each person held their gun - in some cases multiple guns - calmly, comfortably. Even someone without training could tell they were accustomed to using them.

Irma, or rather, the woman pretending to be Irma, sighed. “Well, shit.”

“Wait!”

Everyone turned toward the wall, where a portly man with fuzz on his chin stood beside the jukebox, his hands stretching into the air as some turned guns on him.

“ _What?_ ” Len growled.

“It’s just too quiet,” the man complained. “Can’t kill somebody when it’s this quiet. No fun listening to chicks death-screaming.” He pointed to the juke machine beside him and slowly turned, deliberately slipping coins into the slot and pressing a couple buttons, keeping an eye on the guns around him as he moved with care. “You know you can lower those, right?”

One of the people in the crowd winked at him, turned on the safety, and turned it off again.

The bar fell silent as the jukebox prepped the selection. Irma changed her grip on the beer bottle.

“If it’s that damn Spice Girls song again,” Len snapped.

The man smiled as a music began. ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vppbdf-qtGU)) “ZZ Top, boss. Can’t kill a woman to Spice Girls. Ain’t feminist.” He grinned at the scoffs that came in.

Irma lifted an eyebrow and leaned back on her stool. Everyone watched her hands to see if she reached for a weapon; unseen and unnoticed, one foot rose from the stool’s rung. “And they said chivalry was dead.”

_Rumor spreadin’ round, in that Texas town..._

“Uh...” Tommy looked at her apologetically, then nodded to Len. “Len... Good seeing you.” He began backing away, his hands slowly rising in the air. “I’m not with her...”

_About that shack outside La Grange..._

Len motioned for the door to be closed. “Kill them.”

She didn’t wait for anyone to pull a trigger. As soon as the words left Len’s mouth, Irma kicked the table, sending herself sprawling back. She rolled upward and threw the beer bottle, hitting one man in the face before he could fire. In the same movement, she twisted behind a woman lifting her gun, grabbing the woman’s arm and using her as a shield as she spun, shooting the woman’s gun into the crowd until the cartridge was expended. She could the impact of bullets hitting the woman’s body. She didn’t stop; she didn’t even slow down. As soon as the cartridge was expended, she pulled a metal baton from a clip at her ankle and pressed a button. The top of the stick flew off, hitting a man squarely in the forehead and revealing that the baton was actually a garrote. She tugged the garrote back to her with a snap of the wrist and used it to pull another armed man toward her, using him as a shield as she expended his clip. 

Lured by the noise, more men and women poured in from outside to help, their guns already drawn. Thinking they were reinforcements for Irma, people instantly starting shooting at them, and the people from outside, thinking the people inside were traitors, fired back. Not knowing friend from foe, everyone fell back on the old adage - better a dead friend than a living enemy.

Irma kept moving through the crowd, turning every defensive move into a hit, a kick, a chop, a shot. One woman she tried to use as a shield had realized her plan and tried to slither out of her grasp, wrestling Irma for control of the gun. Instead of trying to grasp her, Irma kicked her feet out from under her and went down with her, landing with her elbow hard and heavy on the woman’s throat, sliding her garrote back into place at her ankle. Before she jumped to her feet again, she grabbed one of the stools and swung it to clear a wide space as she got up again. She slammed it against the counter. The stool broke into pieces, and she used two legs as free, unconnected batons. She ran into the crowd, leaping among the armed men and women and swinging the stool legs with skill and without remorse.

_They got a lot of nice girls._  
Have mercy!  
Ahaw haw haw haw ahaw. 

People shot at her; plenty of the bullets struck her or those around her, doing some of her work for her. The ones that hit her, though, only fell away, leaving only holes and faint scorch mark on her clothes. The revelation only shook her attackers for a moment. They merely continued to shoot at her and, generally, hit the people around her. She glanced toward Len, making sure he was still present and alive, then ducked as a man ran to punch her. 

As she was driven toward the bar, a man who had opted to save his seat and protect his beer turned and grabbed her hair. “HA!” he shouted. “I got the bi-”

She wrenched her head forward. The wig slipped from its place to reveal blonde hair that went inches past her shoulders.

The man stared at the wig in his hand, the black hair hanging lifelessly in this hand. His features morphed into an expression of horror, and he screamed in panic. Still screaming, he threw the wig into the crowd and continued to shake his hand to get all traces of it off of his hand.

_And I hear it’s tight.  
Most every night..._

Irma, visibly annoyed, punched another man before she kicked him for screaming. The man beside the screamer lurched forward, his fist rising in the air. She twisted and grabbed his collar, wrenching him off balance and tripping him over a corpse at his feet. She kicked him in the face as he fell. “Ha, ha, ha, ha,” she half-sang along with the music.

Finally, there were only four people who weren’t injured. Lippy stayed at the table, snoring loudly, and Tommy cowered under the table, whimpering. 

She blew a strand of hair out of her face and advanced on Len, the handles of her garrote joined together and at the ready. The only sign that anyone scattered around them was alive was a faint, discordant series of moans.

Len quickly drew his gun. “Your head’s not bulletproof.

One of her eyebrows rose. She opened the baton into a garrote. The gun slowly lowered. She looked briefly approving before she got down to business. 

She advanced, pushing him back into his seat with one metal end of the garrote against his neck. “Shawn. Hawkins.”

Len glared at her, and she smiled, nonchalantly wrapping the metal wire around his throat.

“Start talking.”

_Have mercy._

* * *

Los Angeles, California  
The park closed at night, but security was limited to three guards who were overworked, underpaid, spread thin, and - most importantly for the purpose of a clandestine meeting - distracted by a game on television. There was more of a threat of being caught by other trespassers, teenagers out for a thrill or homeless people. But it wouldn’t do for trespassers to turn in other trespassers, and, well, if she or the person she was here to meet were caught so easily, the two of them deserved to get caught.

She found him on a bench overlooking the valley below, where lighted roads criss-crossed the earth like a spider-web. In the distance, the sky was tinged pink with the sinking sun; he watched the sky from behind a pair of black sunglasses. He sat with his arms spread along the back of the bench, his legs stretched out in front of him with his ankles crossed. He entire outfit was black, just as it had been every other time she’d seen him. Despite the warm temperature, he even wore his trademark black trenchcoat. 

She herself had switched out her leather ensemble for a pair of jeans, combat boots, sweater, and coat. Instead of a wig, she wore an old-fashioned beret. Over her shoulder, she wore a knapsack. She pulled a couple items out when she saw him.

He didn’t look at her as she approached.

“Carter.”

“Fury.” She set a gladlock bag and miniature notebook beside him but didn’t sit.

He glanced at the bag, then back across the park. “Hope that isn’t what I think that is.”

“Shawn Hawkins. All that’s left. Some bikers found out he was an undercover SHIELD agent after the infodump. Took him to the desert and had a bonfire. I got as much of him as I could, but it’s been a couple years.” She turned to look out over the city. “Won’t lie. There’s a lot of sand in there. And ash. Not sure how much of him I got.”

“Something’s better than nothing. Doesn’t sound like it was quick.”

“They _really_ don’t like SHIELD.” 

“Not a lot of people do.” He paused. “I told you when we started this that the odds were bad.”

“I know. Out of eighty-seven people, though, I expected _one_ person to be alive.” Suddenly tired, she sat on the other side of the bag. “You hold up your end?”

“I’m offended that you’d even ask.” He reached into his coat and pulled out two files. “The favor to me: another missing agent, Stefanie Jimenez. The favor to you: one of Director Carter’s unsolved case files. Same deal as always - the original, unedited version you won’t find anywhere else. And the favor for that friend of yours.” He handed her a folded piece of paper. “You going to tell me what you need _that_ for?”

She took the paper with two careful fingers and put it in an inside pocket of her jacket. “I can tell you that Romanoff says hi.”

“Hm.” Fury looked around and shifted his arms on the back of the bench. “And Rogers?”

“Don’t worry, Fury. I’m sure Steve sends his love, too. Same with Wilson.”

Fury raised an eyebrow. “Calling him Steve now?”

She looked away, ostensibly checking the perimeter. Fury smirked but didn’t comment, and she held up the files he’d given her. “Why give these to me piecemeal?” She glanced at them, her eyes on the distinctive aged typeface on the older file. “I could find agents faster if you gave me all the files at once.”

They both knew the agents’ files weren’t the ones she meant.

“But you don’t keep coming back for the agents’ files. You come back for Peggy’s. And I’m still working out which agents need... extra work to locate.” He paused. “Consider it my way of making sure you check in so I know you’re okay.”

She turned to him in undisguised disbelief.

“I’m responsible for SHIELD, and its agents.” He shifted his feet. “That includes you, even if it’s not official. And don’t try to lie to me. You’re as bad as Romanoff and Rogers when it comes to keeping in touch.”

She couldn’t deny that, and she didn’t try. There were people she hadn’t talked to in more time than she cared to think about. Had it been years? She stared out at the park. “You’re making me check in. Like a rookie.”

“Yep. And if you miss a check-in, if I don’t come after you myself, I’m sending someone else in.” He held up theminiature notebook and the small sandwich bag. “I may not be in charge of SHIELD anymore, but I’m still responsible for this shit. I let Rogers put it out there.”

“Not sure you could have stopped him. He’s a stubborn ass.”

Fury pushed himself to his feet with a groan. “Can’t disagree with that.” He held his hands behind his back, and she tilted her head as she watched him, remembering all the times he’d stood like that during sitreps and op feeds. He stared out over the city the same way he’d looked at the screens back them. “I expect another call within a month, Sharon.”

For a moment, they looked at each other, sizing each other up. They had done it in the past, too. They each knew more about the other than they let on. But since SHIELD fell, they each seemed to be a little more different every time they met, a little harder, a little older, a little more tired, a little lonelier.

She looked away first.

He surveyed the area around them again and tucked the bag and notebook into a pocket in his trenchcoat. “For better and for worse, there’s no other job like it.”

* * *

Oakland, California

Limewood Bar & Restaurant was designed in a modern French style, with its wooden chairs decorated with white cloth cushions and its walls decorated with rococo styles and a large clock on one wall. It tended to make “best of” lists of various kinds, and was one of the laid-back places that people went to see and be seen without anyone thinking that was their intention. It was clean, it was comfortable, and she’d made it before it closed.

“It isn’t like you to be late,” Nakia greeted her. She stood as Sharon walked over, and though the gesture was only meant to be polite, it also showed off her green dress and heels. The green dress only made Nakia’s dark skin appear even more luxurious. “Everything all right?”

Sharon sat at the table across from her, dropping her bag against her foot. She nodded to Nakia’s guard and wasn’t surprised or offended when the Dora Milaje only looked at her before turning her attention back to the room. “I’m twenty-five minutes early.”

“But you always get in half an hour before to size up the situation.” Nakia smiled. “I used stake out places an hour before, at least.”

Sharon raised an eyebrow. Nakia excelled in her position as Wakandan Ambassador to the United States, but it was easy to see that Nakia missed the spy life sometimes. “They say paranoia is unhealthy, you know.”

“And yet, here I am, still alive. Because I believe in preparation. Now _why_ did you insist we meet _here?_ ”

Sharon couldn’t blame Nakia for being confused. Generally, they met at the embassy or at some sort of drop. “I haven’t had dinner yet,” she confessed. “And the restaurant made multiple top-15-burgers-in-the-city lists...”

Nakia stared at her with a hint of amusement that was largely overshadowed by confusion.

“I’ll order, then.” Sharon caught the waiter’s eye and ordered a loaded burger for each of them, along with a beer. Done, she turned to Nakia. “How are things at home?”

“Good,” Nakia said cautiously. Sharon couldn’t blame her for the caution; given her and Steve’s status, talk of Wakanda could turn tumultuous. “How did the suit hold up?”

So things in Wakanda must not have changed - the Avengers would still be running around on missions and otherwise in Wakanda, where the Wakandans would politely but firmly keep an eye on them. Though Wakanda had revealed itself and its accomplishments to the world, there was still a great degree of caution there, even suspicion. It was one of the reasons Sharon had opted not to stay.

Sharon smiled. “Like a dream. Hardly even felt them. Please thank her for me.” They both knew who “her” was, though neither of them would say so in public.

Nakia watched her face. “If you return home, we can do proper diagnostics. I’m sure she could do more. The suit, as it is now, is very basic.”

Sharon hesitated, then shook her head. “Can’t. Got a new agent to track down. Besides, you know as well as I do that the suit will hold up just fine.” She didn’t mention the main reason she didn’t want to return to Wakanda - it wasn’t just that she didn’t want to see certain people; it was that she didn’t like living off of T’Challa’s hospitality. He had already done so much for her and the others, always brushing off their protests by saying he had a duty to them for his earlier actions, no matter how much they said he had already repaid them. She wanted to - _had_ to - earn her keep. Of course, she didn’t mind being outside of Wakanda and free to move freely, either. “ _But._ I picked up that info you wanted. You can take that back with you instead of yours truly.” She couldn’t help but think that the Wakandans, who had not only kept their country’s resources secret from the outside world for ages but had also had a spy network in place to make sure no one would discover their secret, didn’t need her or SHIELD providing information for them. But she could only suppose for now that Nakia had her reasons.

Nakia nodded in acknowledgement, gratefully ignoring the “yours truly.” “And I got the info you asked for.”

Sharon grinned as she pulled the folded piece of paper from her pocket and set it on the table. “What are friends for?”

“We are friends now?” Nakia teased. 

“Business associates?”

Nakia kept her smile in place as she handed Sharon a folder. That done, she studied her newly-acquired piece of paper with an eagerness that betrayed her feelings. “Was your mission a success?”

Sharon shook her head, then paused. “Yes and no. I found out what happened to him. But they killed him in 2014. Burned him. His parents won’t have much to bury.”

Nakia looked up at her. “I’m sorry.” 

Sharon shrugged. “At least his parents will know for sure what happened to him. And no one can say he was Hydra. That’s something.”

Nakia glanced away, and she was so skilled at subtly checking the room that it took a moment even for Sharon to notice that was what she was doing. “If my king does not need me, I may find the time to help with your next name.”

Sharon looked at the paper in Nakia’s hands. They both knew that keeping people out of slavery was something very near and dear to Nakia’s heart. Though she was technically out of the spy game, Nakia still found ways to do good. And those ways kept her busy. “Let me get back to you on that.” She wouldn’t call.

It took another ten minutes of chit-chat, talking in vague code about their mutual acquaintances and filling each other in on events in and out of Wakanda, for their food to arrive.

When their food arrived, Sharon considered her hamburger for several seconds.

Nakia was already a fourth of the way through hers. “Are you going to eat it, or...”

Sharon nodded. “Just give me a second.”

Nakia watched her, wondering what Sharon was up to, and then her eyes widened when she saw Sharon take out a small notebook. “You’re not.”

“I am.” Sharon made a couple of marks.

Nakia shook her head. “I will never understand you.”

* * *

Los Angeles, California  
The efficiency apartment was run-down, built before the city had truly boomed and only avoiding being torn down through a series of landlords who appreciated steady, week-to-week income instead of one mass payment. It was also possible that city managers had forgotten its existence, instinctively looking beyond the eyesore of the building whenever they passed by. It _was_ an ugly building, with chunks of plaster falling off and stretches of dead ivy twisting over and around the walls. Sharon’s apartment, such as it was, was in the corner, overlooking part of the city through the window on one side, and the back parking lot of a CVS on the other.

The apartment was spartan, the walls painted the same chipped mint green the previous resident had chosen. It was an efficiency, consisting of two rooms - the bedroom-slash-kitchen-slash-living area and the bathroom. Both were as small as a 1950s health inspector would allow, which led Sharon to conclude that a disturbing number of humans in the 1950s were the size of mice.The shelves in the kitchen area were bare, save for dust, the oven disconnected since it didn’t work anyway. There was no point to keeping the shelves stocked or fixing the oven when she was here so rarely. Even the room’s only luxury, a television, was old and small, sitting on top of a table that was even older and worn down, but sturdy. She had tidied up the last time she’d been here, but everything was once again covered by a layer of dust. Which meant that she walked in armed with cleaning supplies in addition to her other weapons.

The first thing she did upon entering was dump her travel bag and cleaning supplies beside the door and check her security measures. Satisfied that no one had triggered them, she wiped down the counter and turned down the bed. The windows she left with their layer of grime - it wouldn’t do to make it easy for people to look in. She did, however, clean off the television screen. Done, she glanced outside to make sure there was no one watching, then made her way to the bathroom. Climbing on top of the toilet, she moved aside one of the vents she’d installed when she first moved in, larger than the one that actually worked, then felt around in the empty space behind it and pulled out an old filing box, covered in a faint layer dust and cobwebs. She wiped it off carefully with a Kleenex.

In the main room, she turned on the television and made herself comfortable on the bed. Only when she was completely ready did she pull the box closer, holding it for a couple seconds before taking a breath and opening it. The box was half-full of files, each one with a type-written label. As she pulled them out, though, she could see additional notes on the outside of many of the folders in a clean, crisp scrawl. The writing was undeniably Aunt Peggy’s. Done arranging them around her in stacks of three to five, she added the newest file. She ran her fingers over it reverently as she booted up her laptop and turned on the television.

“-an alleged sighting of Captain America today in Venezuela protecting peaceful protesters from that country’s military,” Christine Everheart said. Sharon glanced at the screen as she typed in her password. “Joining him were - allegedly - Sam Wilson, also known as the Falcon, and Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow. It is unknown if Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, or Clint Barton, also known as Hawkeye, was with them. Nor is it known where the former Avengers and now international fugitives have been hiding.”

The scene cut to General Thaddeus Ross striding fast down a nondescript hallway, the camera bobbing as the cameraman struggled to keep up with him. “No, we don’t know what they were there for, but it doesn’t matter. They’re fugitives from the law. _That’s_ what matters. We will hunt them down and bring them to justice no matter _where_ they are. That’s what the US _does_ with criminals.”

“What were they ever convicted of, asshole,” Sharon muttered. She pulled out the other file Fury had given her, the one on Stefanie Jimenez, and set it on the other side of the computer. Her eyes strayed back to Peggy’s handwriting.

“Anyone supporting them will be held accountable,” Ross continued. “And the United States and 116 other countries will do whatever it has to to bring these fugitives - these _criminals_ \- to justice.”

Without looking up, Sharon flipped him off.

“The individuals identified by Ross’s department as allegedly being former Avengers were gone before authorities could arrive,” Everheart concluded, leaving viewers with grainy footage of people who might have been Steve, Sam, and Natasha.

Sharon closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay, Jimenez. You first.” It took some effort, but she moved Peggy’s files to the side. “Please be alive.”


	2. Noor Inayat Khan ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Sharon begins her investigation into Stefanie Jimenez, others begin their investigation into Sharon.
> 
> Songs:  
> Lorde, "Yellow Flicker Beat"  
> T Rex, "Get It On (Bang a Gong)"

_Ithaca, New York_  
Outside the compound’s floor-to-ceiling, bullet-resistant windows, rain fell over the extended eaves of the roof in sheets. The darkness outside made the fluorescent lights overhead appear glaringly bright. The lights weren’t the only thing giving him a headache. Tony Stark had a lot of things on his mind, and he preferred not to think about the current subject if he could avoid it. “Trust me, General Ross, if I could help you find Rogers and company, I would. Unfortunately, I can’t, so I’ll have to console myself as best I can with ending this conversation as soon as I can.”

No sooner had he mentioned ending the conversation than Ross’s voice barked in his ear again. “You know these people, Stark. You and Rogers led the Avengers together for years. Don’t tell me you don’t know where he is.”

Tony gave his chair in the Ithaca compound a spin as Ross talked, apathetic to the phone’s cord wrapping around him. Tony had designed his office in Ithaca to be a sanctuary, a place where he could concentrate on work that didn’t need his lab. The place was modern, with straight lines and simple, complementing colors. White walls and ceilings, dark wooden desk. Grey carpets. Everything was pristine and ready for ideas, an engineer’s dream office. His ideas were currently blocked by the conversation he was more-or-less engaged in. Could Ross sense Tony rolling his eyes over the phone? “Yeah, and again, like I’ve told you before, Steve and I aren’t bosom buddies. Not even pen pals. I don’t know what he’s doing or how. Or where, or when, or why.” He stopped spinning long enough to throw a dart at the back of his door across the room, where he’d covered a dartboard with a picture of General Ross. His arm caught in the phone cord, and he missed. With a disgruntled sigh, he started spinning in the other direction.

“There aren’t many people who could bankroll Rogers through all of this. He’s been spotted all over the world, Stark. You honestly expect me to believe you haven’t been helping him out? Feeding him money? Feeding him intel about where to be and when?”

“I thought the leading theory was that Romanoff was getting him his intel.” He pulled out his cell phone and texted, pausing to roll his eyes. “Not like anyone else in the group has intel contacts.”

“You’re _sure_ Romanoff’s the only one getting him all of his intel?”

Tony frowned. The only one? Why was Ross saying it like that? Honestly, even when Ross was being remotely interesting, Tony _still_ despised him. “No, if I knew for _sure,_ I wouldn’t have to bring up what I thought the leading theory was. Besides, I thought this was officially _your_ investigation. I’m just a civilian, remember? With my own fugitive-free life, keeping up with my own fugitive-free things.”

“Sure, you are,” Ross replied, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “And I supposed you don’t know Agent Carter, either.”

Tony’s frown deepened. He kicked himself into another spin. It was faster this time, the cord tighter. Again, he didn’t care enough to notice. “No, I _don’t_ know Agent Carter.” Wait a minute. An agent that wasn’t Coulson, tied to Steve somehow. Carter, Carter... “Wait. Was she the one at your little Terrorism Center where you took Barnes after you arrested him? The one that tried to fight the Winter Soldier?” 

“Blonde. Brown eyes. Five-eight. Margaret Carter’s great-niece.” Ross paused. “You know Margaret Carter, of course. She and your dad were close back in the day.”

Tony’s spinning slowed. “Margaret Carter. No, I don’t know her. Don’t think I ever even met her. I know she was co-Director of SHIELD or something with my dad, but I didn’t exactly keep track of all of my dad’s friends and coworkers.” He hadn’t even realized Howard was involved with SHIELD until years after Howard had died. “I don’t know if you noticed, General. That was _your_ generation. The cryptkeeper generation. I didn’t interact with gen-crypt if I can help it.” The phone started sliding across the desk, and Tony looked at the cord in surprise. He briefly glared upward, then spun in the opposite direction. There had to be wireless office phones out there he could use.

Ross might have tried to laugh at Tony’s joke, or the flat groan might have been that of a man honestly wishing for death. “There’s evidence she stole Rogers’ and Wilson’s equipment for them back before your little airport scuffle. Which means she’s the one who helped you get your ass kicked.” He paused again. “But as much as that makes me like her, she’s still a traitor. It also means she’s likely in contact with your other fugitive friends. And we’re going to bring her in along with the others, treat her just like Rogers and his other friends. So if you’ve had any contact with her, this would be the time to give her up.”

Another spin as Tony considered the situation. He wasn’t as good with people as he was with machines - people were harder to control and, painfully, harder to predict - but he was still a genius. And he knew what it was like to look up to (and sometimes hate, and almost always hate to look up to) Steve Rogers. He also understood that Ross was talking about locking up Sharon Carter in the Raft, and he knew what the Raft was like. He’d had the dishonor of seeing his teammates locked up there despite his best efforts. The Raft was meant to hold those who couldn’t be held anywhere else, people like the Hulks and various supers and, it seemed, anyone associated with Steve. “Of course, General. Nothing would warm my heart more than helping you try to arrest yet more people to throw them into cells only meant to hold the worst of the worst. Bye now, Thaddicus.”

Hanging up, Tony looked at the rain outside the window, but his eyes strayed toward the drawing of Steve as a performing monkey. More and more often, he thought he understood how Steve must have felt when he’d drawn that sketch. He also knew that Steve wasn’t the one feeling like a performing monkey these days. As he organized sketches and notes for his latest project, he grabbed one of the out-of-place rubber bands and fired it at the drawing.

Spinning around to face his desk again, he set both hands on the desk. He sized up how everything was arranged only to find himself glaring at them. He cleared them away. He had a new project now. “FRIDAY, pull up everything you can on Sharon Carter, Margaret Carter’s great-niece.” He hesitated. “And find out where she is. I need to get to her before Ross does.”

* * *

_Swiss Alps_  
The stone walls were thick, but they did nothing to keep out the wintry chill outside. The only sources of light were the cold, gray haze from the slitted windows, and the hot, flaming glow of the fire in the fireplace. The fireplace was the only object in the room that made the room seem livable. The room was small and almost painfully sparse. A tiny bed sat against the wall in an aged wooden frame, a pine chest for her clothes, and, because today was special, a mirror in the corner near the fireplace. 

A young woman, not yet thirty, stood in front of the mirror, surveying her new clothes in the reflection. Her dark red hair was cut in a sharp, short bob. She still remembered when she’d gotten the haircut years ago, back when she’d been a child. “It looks _severe,_ ” Susan had said in approval. Susan almost never said anything that indicated approval, and Sinthea hadn’t changed her hair since, even had it trimmed every week.

She wondered if her chin looked severe, too, but somehow she didn’t think it qualified. It was pointed, sure, but it lacked gravitas, just like the rest of her face did. She stared accusingly at the feature that stopped her from looking tough or commanding - her nose. Her nose was too small, her eyes too large and too green and too innocent. She leaned into to the mirror and glowered at the other feature that made her look young, naive, maybe even ridiculous- despite how she almost never went outside, she had a wealth of freckles. She rubbed at them, glared at them again, and stepped back until the freckles became easier to ignore.

She plucked at the stiff black fabric she wore, the plain trousers and heavily starched coat that made her feel small and awkward and itchy. Not that she didn’t feel small on most days - she only stood a little over five feet tall and was one of the smallest people at the abbey. But it made her feel flat-chested, and she was flat enough as it was.

The door opened, and an older woman came in, accompanied by two others. The two other women stopped by the door like well-trained pets, waiting for the older woman’s return.

“Sinthea,” the woman greeted her warmly. Everything but her face was covered by her clothes; she was dressed as the prioress, and as starched as Sinthea’s clothes were, this woman’s clothes were just as severe, if not more so. Her face, in contrast, was much softer. The wrinkles in her face were the result of a life well-lived and well-loved. She was the closest thing to a mother Sinthea had ever known.

“Mother Superior.” Sinthea glanced behind her at the other two women, both of them about her age, but neither of them acknowledged her. None of the other women here ever acknowledged her unless directed to do so.

“How does the outfit suit you?”

Not as well as it could. She schooled her features before they could betray her. “Very well, Mother Superior. Thank you.”

With gentle but firm hands, Mother Superior turned her back toward the mirror. “Your father would be so proud of you,” she murmured warmly. “I certainly am.”

Sinthea’s eyes lit up, and only practice kept the smile off her face. Control over one’s emotions showed control of one’s self. And Sinthea would not let anyone think she lacked control. Only when she had proven herself would she be able to relax, so long as she kept a firm grasp of what emotions she showed and how. Like so many lessons she had learned here, she would not forget. “Thank you, Mother Superior.”

Mother Superior put her hands on Sinthea’s shoulders. Sinthea watched as Mother Superior studied Sinthea’s clothes, but it was only when Mother Superior’s eyes fell on her own hands on Sinthea’s shoulders that Mother Superior smiled. “You are the heir to the Red Skull, and you will fulfill his mission.”

Sinthea’s shoulders straightened. “Yes, Mother Superior.”

* * *

_New York, New York_  
Sharon settled in the backseat as the taxi, playing music just a little too loud  ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PdILZ_1P74)) left the train station. The taxi smelled like piss and vomit, and the New York air didn’t smell any better. The city was saturated with the stench of refuse and the activity of life - the trash that lured rats, the greasy food sold on the corners, the remnants of drunken nights. It wasn’t as if the city merely smelled, either. As soon as she rolled down the window, the sounds of the city rushed in. The screeching of gears and clanging of construction projects reverberated off the buildings, the constant hum and honking of traffic, the shouts from passersby and vendors. There was no city like it. Sharon sighed to herself in satisfaction.

The taxi driver glanced at her in the rearview. She hoped he wasn’t one of those chatty people. Chatty people tended to want conversation she didn’t want to give. And of course, everyone remembered someone who was rude to them, and would be only too happy to snitch them out to the authorities if they could.

She pasted on a smile. “Came in from DC,” she lied. Even if she weren’t an international fugitive, she’d never tell him that she’d actually come from her hometown. “It’s good to finally get some fresh air.”

He smiled uncomfortably, not sure if she was joking.

She grinned back, appearing oblivious to his discomfort, and returned to looking out the window. She instinctively checked to make sure they weren’t being followed, and that the people on the street weren’t paying the taxi any undue attention. Nakia wasn’t the only person who thought paranoia kept people alive.

It wasn’t long before the driver pulled down side streets, the buildings getting smaller and less ornate, older and more worn down. As she had expected, he drove past the bar she intended to visit as he drove to her supposed destination. The street was crowded with pawn shops with fogged, barred windows, several of which advertised their souvenirs alongside ads for shady nightclubs; people milled around outside, networking, doing business transactions, or just milling around. The driver turned around the corner and parked. Even here, there were people standing in front of the shops, their eyes a little too watchful, their stances too ready to act at the slightest alarm. Before he could read off the fare, she handed him several bills and told him to keep the change.

It wasn’t until he’d hastily counted them that he said, “Want me to wait for you? Just in case?”

She shook her head and gave him a small wave over her shoulder as she set off around the corner. She waited just out of sight until she heard the taxi drive off.

As she walked down the street, checking the landmarks she’d found on Google Earth (honestly, except for how it stored as much information about whoever used it as possible, Google Earth was a wonderful spying tool), her steps slowed as she saw three boys across the street on their bikes; they couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Two of them had skin the color of rich chestnut; the taller boy sported a promising afro. The third boy, a little thicker than the others, followed close behind. His skin was lighter, almost a dull brass, and his short black hair grew up straight. They rode their bikes as if on a mission, their shoulders tense as they eyed the bar across the street. Drawing even with it, the three of them turned to face the bar and stopped, glaring across the street. 

Ahead of her, three men on the sidewalk straightened. They were all white, their undertones varying from pink to ash. Two of them wore leather vests; the youngest wore a white T-shirt and torn jeans. Spotting the teenagers, they moved to the edge of the sidewalk as if protecting the bar.

Across the street, a man with skin so dark it made his gray beard look almost ethereal, moved toward the boys and spoke quietly with them. With a final glare at the white men across the street, the three boys turned their bikes into an alley. When the man straightened, Sharon was sure she saw a glass bottle with a rag sticking out of it.

“Gotta love New York,” she muttered to herself.

She slipped behind the men as they taunted the boys across the street - it didn’t surprise her that such men would feel the need to taunt children.

A bell rang over her head as she stepped inside, briefly fracturing the sound from the jukebox ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc-OJ9DeeSc)). Shots Bar was dark inside, dingy. She took a moment once she to adjust to the dimness and the cigarette smoke. Ugh. One day closer to laundry day. She surveyed the crowd inside - too many people to be in a bar in the early afternoon. Most of them seemed suspicious of her. She didn’t blame them; she was just as suspicious of them, too, if not more so. It didn’t help that most of them wore leather jackets with handmade patches on the sleeves and had shaved their heads, a traditional uniform for people generally best avoided.

In contrast, she wore simple blue jeans, a pair of red ballet flats, and a blouse with flowers on it. With her tanned leather, crossbody purse, she looked like she ought to be hosting a school fundraiser, not infiltrating a place where many of the men took joy in intimidating, hurting, and maybe even killing people.

Nonetheless, she plastered on a friendly smile and stepped up to the bar. “Hi,” she said in her best preppy voice and drawing out the vowel. “I’m _so_ sorry to bother you. I was hoping you could help me?”

“Want us to call you a cab?” he asked. He was older, short but bulky, his arms crossed and his head bald except for a few tufts of gray hair on the sides. His skin was tanned, toughened and scarred and wrinkled by too much sun. He looked her up and down in a way she knew all too well and that her father would once have tried to protect her from. He smiled to himself; she pretended not to notice. “Or you need a place to sit awhile? Drinks on the house, since you’re in trouble.” He grinned at her - or more specifically, her chest - in a way that would have upset her in her younger days, maybe even had her jumping over the bar to punch him.

Fortunately, she wasn’t so hot-tempered these days. “That is _so_ sweet!” She forced her smile wider. “But no, I need to keep my cardio up! Thanks so much for the offer, though! I’m actually looking for a friend of mine.”

The younger bartender toward the end of the bar looked from her to the other patrons. His complexion was paler, his hair a plain, solid brown that was longer on top and trimmed at the sides. He was tall, thin, and muscular. He wore jeans, combat boots, and a T-shirt that was a size too small. All of his clothes were aged and broken-in. A dirty rag was slung over his shoulder. He studied her with limpid brown eyes. “I don’t think you’ll find anybody you know here, sweetheart.”

Sharon glanced at him. He looked frighteningly normal; he might have been attractive under other circumstances. But this was one of the last places she knew Stefanie Jimenez had been; even without the multiple signs that this was a white nationalist establishment, Sharon knew better than to trust any of them.

She laughed, holding a hand to her chest. “Oh, no! I’m looking for a _girl._ My sorority sister. Way back in the day.” She chuckled and shook her head. “I’m not going to date myself by telling you how long ago, though!” She laughed again and added a hapless shrug. “Her mom is convinced that she’s in some sort of trouble. She’s been looking for Carla for years, but no luck. Until last week? She got a phone call saying Carla came here. It would have been _years_ ago, though.” She took a moment to struggle with her purse, making a show of rummaging inside. She finally dug out a somewhat tattered photo of Stefanie in her pre-Academy days, smiling at the camera beside a girl who could have been Sharon so long as no one looked too closely at her face. “I don’t suppose you remember her at all? Her mom’s sick, so I promised I’d stop by and ask. Let her know if I found anything? Seriously, we’re just trying to find out if she’s okay, that’s it. So anything you can tell me...”

The older man pulled the picture toward him, and despite how Sharon tried to move so that he wouldn’t touch her hand, his fingers brushed against hers and rested against them. He looked up from the picture without seeming to have looked at either girl’s face and smiled. “Never seen her.”

“Oh,” Sharon said with a disappointed frown. “Um. Have _you_ seen her?” She held the photo out toward the other bartender, who came over and glanced at it.

“Nope. If she was here, she wasn’t a regular.”

“Oh,” she said again, her shoulders falling in disappointment. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Sorry we couldn’t help more,” the younger bartender said.

She nodded in thanks. “Well. Thanks for trying!” She gave them all another friendly smile before stepping back outside. She smiled at the guards out front, who looked at her in surprise. One of them hurried inside to take responsibility for her slipping past, and her smile turned into a smirk as she walked down the street. As soon as she was out of sight, her vapid expression disappeared completely, and she wiped her hand on her jeans. “Assholes.”

* * *

“I didn’t even see her go in, boss, I swear.”

The older bartender shrugged. “Wouldn’t have wanted you stopping that one. Shame she had on so many clothes, though. But prudes.” He whistled. “You get ‘em to let loose? They go _crazy._ ”

The younger bartender ignored his counterpart. He pointed to the man in the doorway. “Follow her,” he said firmly. “Tell me where she goes.”

* * *

_Los Angeles, California_  
It had taken over a day for FRIDAY to find a place where Carter might be, a testament to how hard Carter had worked to hide the place away. In the end, though, security footage had given her away, and FRIDAY had determined that Carter was using this rundown apartment building as a home. Tony didn’t see the appeal; sure, the kids outside who had pointed them to the right apartment had been nice, but they weren’t nice enough for Tony to put up with the roach he saw flee under a floorboard he’d seen when they’d come in.

“So what? We’re hunting down some kid you knew when _you_ were a kid?” Rhodey, staying in the doorway and crossing his arms, looked around the dingy apartment and shook his head. He hadn’t wanted to come, but he’d wanted Tony to come alone even less; neither of them had suggested that Pepper come along. Tony would never say so out loud, but he knew it was a testament to Rhodey’s friendship that Rhodey had even worn the walking aid Tony had designed. He knew Rhodey wasn’t a huge fan of it, especially how it wrapped around his waist and had metal gears reaching to his feet, but it was better than not walking at all. Tony glanced at him, again thinking of how he could better streamline it. The rig didn’t do Rhodey any good if it made him feel uncomfortable.

Evidently, he was silent for too long, and Rhodey waved a hand to get Tony’s attention. “I thought you were done being Ross’s lapdog.”

Tony held up a finger returned to his search of the room as if he hadn’t thought of anything else, ever. “I was never Ross’s lapdog. And no, we’re not hunting a kid. We’re hunting someone that I knew when she _was_ a kid. She’s not a kid anymore. She’s an adult. Which means she can be tried as an adult - if they bother trying her at all.”

“You barely remember her, man.”

“True. But her great-aunt worked with my dad. That practically makes us family. Co-family. Cousins.” Tony turned to see if Rhodey was buying it; he wasn’t. “Okay, okay. Not really. But I don’t want Ross to get to her first. All she did, according to Ross, was get Steve and Sam their stuff. She doesn’t deserve to go to the Raft for that.” He walked slowly around the room. “Tape residue. She had to hide whatever she was looking at somewhere, right?”

Rhodey gave him a look that clearly asked how the hell he was supposed to know. “Tony. I’m a soldier, not a spy.”

“And I’m a genius. It’s somewhere, we just have to find it.”

“Unless she took it with her,” Rhodey pointed out.

Tony ignored him and stepped back to look at the walls, framing each one with his outstretched hands. “What would Natasha do? She would...” He moved toward the kitchen. “Hide things she thought were valuable...” He wrenched open a drawer. “Here!” He glanced inside the drawer, saw it was empty, and opened another. “Here?” He silently opened a couple more. 

“I think she burned this place,” Rhodey said. After a moment, he sighed and walked into the kitchen, grudgingly opening a cabinet.

Tony started tapping on the floor, then kicking the floorboards. “Normally I agree, but FRIDAY says ‘Nora Baker’ is still renting the place out. Nora Baker was another name for Noor Inayat Khan, a French Resistance spy. Obviously, a code name.” He frowned as he rapped his knuckles against the wall. “Doesn’t make sense to keep renting the place if it’s burned.”

“Maybe she wanted to fool people into looking? Wasting their time?” 

“Then why did the kids outside recognize her picture? She’s here often enough that they knew her on sight.”

One of the floorboards came loose.

Glancing at Rhodey, Tony crouched down. He peered inside, then got to his feet. “Something’s in there.”

“So get it out,” Rhodey urged.

Tony looked at him as if he were crazy and held up his hands. “How about no.”

Rhodey scoffed and stared at him.

Tony stared back. After a moment, he turned his hands back and forth to show how clean they were.

Rhodey crossed his arms.

“You’re the soldier,” Tony said. “I’m just a businessman. A very smart, rich, amazing, and amazingly _clean_ businessman.”

Rhodey glared at him. 

“Think of it as another test of the rig,” Tony suggested. “I’ll be here to help you up if you fall and can’t get up again.”

“You’re weaker than I am,” Rhodey reminded him. “Or did you forget the multiple times you’ve tried to help me up only to fall on your ass right next to me?”

“Never happened,” Tony said firmly.

They stood, frozen, for several seconds, and then Rhodey suddenly grumbled and carefully got to his knees. “May I remind you that my spine was _severed?_ ” he asked as he peered into the hole.

Tony peered over his shoulder. “Barely. Besides - you’re fine now.”

Rhodey snorted. Carefully, he pulled a small manilla envelope out of the hole with pinched fingers. It was covered in dust and cobwebs, but the tape used to secure it inside the hole wasn’t too badly aged - a couple years, tops. Opening it, he pulled out a small key. It had an old-fashioned shape but was too shiny to be old; it looked too shiny to have even been used.

They looked at it in silence.

“Safe deposit key?” Rhodey asked.

“I’d have to ask Pepper.”

Rhodey glanced at him. “You’ve never seen one of these? Seriously?”

Tony shrugged. “I don’t have to know where my money is to know I have a lot of it. Besides, Pepper takes care of all that.”

“It’s a safe deposit key,” Rhodey said, noticeably firmer this time. “Probably a back-up, from the look of things.”

Tony eyed the key curiously. “What do you think it opens?”

“A. Safe. Deposit. Box.”

“But which one?” Tony shrugged. “We watch the same movies. The boxes are in those rooms at banks. Do all banks have one?”

Rhodey looked at him as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How was Tony so rich, and so smart, and yet unfamiliar with such basics as what banks looked like? On the other hand, he supposed he couldn’t be surprised - this was the man who’d thought his social security number was five. “Well, yeah. They do.”

Tony pointed at the key. “You know which bank has the box?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but after turning the key over and over several times, Rhodey conceded defeat. “We’ll ask Pepper.”

Tony nodded with smug satisfaction and turned back to the rest of the room. “Think there’s anything under the bed?”

“Like a monster?” Rhodey pocketed the key and strode over. “Want me to check so you know you’re safe?”

“Sure.” Tony looked around. Seeing the bathroom door, he headed over.

“You just want me to look so you don’t get your damn hands dirty,” Rhodey complained as he got to his feet and moved toward the bed.

Tony grinned without even looking at him. He nudged the door open, his hands safe in his pockets, and went inside. Glancing back to make sure Rhodey was still busy, he lifted the lid off the back of the toilet, then went through the nearly-empty medicine cabinet. Finding nothing, he turned away. He brushed aside the shower curtain and noted that the shower was clean, if not everything else. Stepping back, he started kicking at the floorboards again. Finding nothing, he looked around and frowned at the vent over the toilet. He counted the vents in the room. Three. A bathroom this size would only need one. And the one over the bathroom was much, much bigger.

“Hey, Rhodey? Come check this out.”

Rhodey came over, dusting off his pants. “Nothing, man.”

Tony pointed at the vent over the toilet.

Rhodey turned to him. “ _No._ ”

“You _are_ a little taller,” Tony said.

“A _lot_ taller, you mean.”

“Making you the perfect person to look up there.”

Rhodey glared at him. After a moment, he said, “I’m only doing this because you’re _way_ too short to do this on your own. Like a chihuahua.” He cautiously climbed onto the toilet, balancing himself on Tony’s shoulder.

“Speak for yourself, Pug Butt.”

Rhodey slid his fingers along the vent, prising it forward until he could get his fingers underneath. “Dog breath.”

Tony’s mouth opened to retort and then paused. “Do you think I should get Pepper a dog?”

Rhodey stopped and turned to look at Tony over his shoulder. “If you do it without telling her first, I’m in your will, right?”

Tony made a rude face at him. “I’ll leave you the dog.” 

Rhodey handed him the vent and reached up to feel around inside. “Nothing.” He made a face and pulled out his hand; it was covered in cobwebs and dust. “Crap.”

Tony stepped back, alarmed. It took all his self-control not to drop the vent right then and there. He took a breath and set it aside, careful to keep contact between the vent and his body and clothes to a minimum. “Nope.”

“Just hand me a paper towel, man.”

Tony spun on his heels. “I’m gonna call Pep about the key.” He was out the door before he was even done speaking.

“Tony!”

“Meet you outside! Wash your hands!”

“TONY!”

Alone in the apartment, Rhodey sighed and shook his head. After a moment, he replaced the vent.

* * *

_New York, New York_  
Her burner phone buzzed in her pocket. Pulling it out, she saw the text from Fury’s number. The code he used was second nature to her by now. Despite how her phone, gifted to her by Wakanda, couldn’t be tracked, traced, or - if it fell into enemy hands - decoded, she still communicated in code unless talking. And sometimes, even then. An extra layer of secrecy never hurt. “Package delivered. Call.”

She glanced at the reflections around her, noting the guy following behind. Sharon pressed the button to return the call. “Hey. I might have to hang up in a hurry. You good with me calling you back?”

“Depends on why you’d hang up on me in the first place.”

“Oh, you know me. Making friends wherever I go.” People were thinning out as she headed away from the shops. She headed deeper into the residential areas. She didn’t want an audience for what she knew was about to happen.

There was the briefest pause; when he spoke, his tone showed he understood what she meant. “I’ll be quick, then. Delivered Hawkins to his family. They appreciated knowing for sure what happened to him. Glad to know he wasn’t Hydra, too. They’re gonna give him a proper burial. We’ve got an invitation.”

Sharon grimaced. “I don’t think I’ll be able to make it.”

“I told them not to expect us. Any luck on Jimenez?”

“The sort of luck that gets me a new friend. I’ll call when I have something to report.”

It wasn’t the answer he was looking for, she could tell. In the pause that followed, she remembered how he gave her missions one at a time so he could make sure she was still alive. She wondered if he was worrying about her right now and wished he wouldn’t. “Keep me updated,” Fury said, sounding tired.

“Will do,” she said, feeling a little guilty that she didn’t have more information for him, that she didn’t want his protection, that she probably wasn’t the perfect agent he wanted her to be.

She ended the call and turned a corner, seemingly lost in thought.

When the person following her turned the corner after her, she moved back to the sidewalk from where she’d pressed herself against the wall, blocking his way. She smiled. “Took you long enough.” A high kick, and he fell into the wall, head first. She stooped beside him. “You’re lucky all I want is answers,” she said. She glanced around, not seeing anyone to raise the alarm.

Grabbing his shirt and pulling, his head lolled too much for his unconsciousness to be an act.

“Aw, crap,” she muttered.

She let go, making a face at the sound of his body hitting the concrete. 

After a moment, she lifted his hand over his head and dropped it, only to watch as he slapped himself in the face. She sighed. Not faking it, then.

She studied him for several seconds before digging in her purse again. She had a small notepad inside, and she flipped to the last page. She quickly scribbled, “Oops,” added a smiley face, and stuck it inside the man’s collar. 

“Welp. Better luck next time,” she told him. Getting to her feet again, she glanced both ways and then crossed the street, disappearing out of sight.


	3. Noor Inayat Khan (iii)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon's adversaries have more tricks up their sleeves than she thought; meanwhile, some unexpected rescuers are on their way...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work is supposed to take place in the lead-up to Infinity Wars, which I've since found out is set NEXT year instead of this one. /rude noise./ So... please roll with that? I hope this work stays at least vaguely canon compliant until then, lol.
> 
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AINUL!

_New York, New York_  
Sandy Gillespie watched as the man was wheeled away, grateful that she was in better shape than he was, even if she was twenty hours into her shift. She fiddled with the hem of her eggplant-purple scrubs as the chaos of the new admission followed him down the hall, with some nurses and doctors peeling away to deal with paperwork and other other patients. It was another busy day at Metro-General Hospital, but for one brief, shining moment, activity hummed around her and didn’t draw her into it. Upon realizing that she had a moment to herself, she looked around and then ducked into a stairwell. Pulling her cell phone from her pocket, she peeked through the window in the door to see if anyone had noticed her absence yet. As soon as she heard the person on the other end pick up, she jumped away from the door and tucked herself into the corner. “Claire?”

On the other end of the line, Claire paused _Rogue One_ and leaned forward. Luke, beside her, glanced at her at sighed, shaking his head - they’d already paused the movie seven times already for various reasons, and Luke was tired of having to pause a movie he’d heard so much of and still hadn’t seen. She made a face at him. “Sandy?”

Sandy leaned forward, peering up and down the stairwell. She didn’t see anyone, but she still lowered her voice. “Hey! Yeah, it’s me.” She hesitated and cleared her throat. “Uh. You said to tell you if anything kind of weird came in, right?”

Claire’s hand, on the way to grab some popcorn, dropped as her interest piqued. “Yeah, I did. Hi, Sandy. What’s up?”

“I don’t know if it’s something, but there’s a guy here. The EMTs that brought him in said he was found unconscious, and the cops who answered the call said they had to chase away a bunch of other skinheads. The guy that was unconscious? Derek Hovater? He woke up on the way here. He says some woman followed him when he was on his way home and attacked him. A super-powered woman.”

Claire closed her eyes. “Damn it, Jessica,” she murmured.

Luke was paying closer attention now. 

She turned toward him as she addressed Sandy. “Did he say what she looked like?”

“Uh, well. He said close to seven feet tall. I think that’s just his injured pride talking. But definitely blonde-”

Claire relaxed. “Blonde.”

“Yeah. White, blonde. Brown eyes.”

“And if he’s exaggerating the height, he could be exaggerating the superpowers, too.”

“Could be. But he’s still here, with a definite concussion, and he’s adamant a woman did it to him. And that she hit harder than a truck.”

“Where?”

“I’m not sure. The cops told the EMTs that they’d caught the skinheads trying to take him someplace, but they ran when they saw the cops. They recognized some of the guys, though - said they’re regulars at a place called Shots Bar. Said it was bad news and that the EMTs should be careful if they ever went there.”

“What did the guy say? Derek Hovater?”

“He just says he was walking home and this woman followed him and attacked him. He’s being vague about everything but her description. White, blonde, brown eyes, incredibly tall, skinny, maybe an Asgardian...”

“Right,” Claire said, rolling her eyes. “He probably just doesn’t want the cops to go after his buddies.” But that didn’t mean Claire couldn’t go after them. If they were being targeted by someone with powers, it was likely that Claire and Luke would be more interested than the cops. Assaults by seven-foot-tall women weren’t an NYPD priority. And if this woman was targeting skinheads, maybe Claire and Luke could talk to her. Not recruit her, necessarily. Just talk.

“Okay, Sandy. Thanks for the heads up. I’ll look into it.”

“Be safe,” Sandy told her. Claire could also hear what Sandy wasn’t saying - that she hoped Claire wouldn’t tell anyone that Sandy had told her anything. They both knew that giving out patient information - no matter how trivial it seemed - could cause Sandy trouble, if not directly get her fired.

Claire looked at the man watching her on the other side of the couch and grinned. “Will do.” Hanging up, she smiled coyly at Luke. “Mind putting off watching the movie a little longer?”

Luke groaned and dropped his head to the back of the couch.

* * *

Dusk fell, its beauty given a pollution boost by the city to turn vivid red and yellow in the rare places the sky could still be seen. On the city streets, it showed only as a crystalline darkness that gradually turned a hazy blue until at last the streetlights flickered on.

Unlike in the taxi earlier, Sharon didn’t look to the sky or the architecture. She noted the passage of time only in relation to what was going on across the street. From her temporary room in what passed for a hotel across the street, her eyes rarely wavered from the building and the area around it. On the few occasions that she grabbed one of the candy or protein bars on the table beside her, it was without looking. The closest she came to looking away from the bar was to write in a small notebook, and she held it before her to write, keeping the scene outside in her peripheral. The writing appeared sloppy and disorganized, but Sharon understood what it meant. Perhaps more importantly, Fury would understand what it meant if something happened to her. Sharp-eyed people might notice that the writing was arranged in something resembling a ramshackle chart. If Fury found the notebook, he’d see times, a description of activity, and descriptions of people going in and out of the bar.

The room behind her was increasingly dark. There was a small bathroom, decorated in a mint-toothpaste green; she could touch all of the walls without having to move from the toilet, and the sink, shower, and toilet were all stained with rust and age. The room itself wasn’t much bigger; it held a bed with a green paisley bedspread, obviously bought on clearance years before if not from a yard sale. The bed had barely been touched ever since she’d entered the room, when she’d tossed her knapsack onto it. There were two battered wooden nightstands, each home to a lamp that would have looked at home in the sixties but now looked as if they should be in some hole in the ground where people could come by and pay their respects. Sharon had noted the mismatched light bulbs, but since she wasn’t using the lamps, such things didn’t bother her. The only other furniture was the wooden bureau that more-or-less matched the nightstands, with its boxy TV - complete with rabbit ears - turned off, the chair Sharon sat in with its stained green upholstery, and the small wooden table that didn’t even pretend to match anything else in the room.

Sharon planted her feet on the windowsill and gently kicked back, rocking her chair back and forth. She had pulled her hair into a ponytail again and switched out her preppy outfit for gray jeans, a white T-shirt, a black sweatjacket, and worn but comfortable black boots. If not for the onesie she was wearing underneath, she would be perfectly comfortable. Taking out her phone, she texted a single emoji to several different numbers that she typed in from memory, and then dialed one as she checked the bar again. “Hey, it’s me.”

“I expected you to call earlier.”

“Didn’t have anything to report. Got followed. Didn’t get answers out of him. Then had to switch out my gear, and Grand Central isn’t exactly close. I’m keeping an eye on the place now, keeping track of who comes and goes. Just wanted to check in and let you know I’m okay.”

“Next time check in sooner.” Fury hung up, and Sharon pulled the phone away and made a face at it before reaching to set it on the table. Before she could, though, it vibrated, and she looked at the emoji text that came in and smiled to herself before realizing that was the wrong response and relaxing her features into a more neutral expression.

Across the street, she heard a shout. She leaned forward, feeling the hum in her spine that promised action. “Oh, hey, there, Mr. Guy,” she murmured to herself. Even if she hadn’t recognized him from earlier, the medical bracelet and ice pack pressed to his temple gave him away. Whenever he moved the ice pack, she could see the swelling and discoloration underneath. She smirked as she thought that the back of his head must look even worse. “Neener, neener.”

She watched as he was surrounded by friends and led inside the bar, then sat down to record some more notes.

* * *

“She knocked you out,” the older man repeated. “Are you kidding me? You’re supposed to be a killer, man!” Other men were gathered around to hear what was going on, but they were careful to let the older man hold court behind the counter. Instead, they crowded Derek, alternately comforting him and ribbing him. Though to Derek, he honestly couldn’t tell which was which. It all felt insulting. He should have killed the bitch when he’d had the chance.

“I’m sorry, Jeff! I had her, I swear. She’s gotta be one of those freaks. You know. The inhuman ones or whatever.”

“Inhuman,” Jeff said derisively, rolling his eyes. “Just don’t want to admit you got beaten up by a girl. And the rest of you - running away from the cops? You _shoot_ them. You don’t just let them take away one of ours!”

“We got friends on the force,” one of the men countered. “It’s why they don’t come by here when there’s trouble. ‘Sides, they just took him to the hospital. We went and got him out. Everything’s fine.”

“Everything’s fine,” Jeff repeated. He looked to the younger bartender, who stood nearby with his arms crossed. “Can you believe this guy?”

The younger man didn’t respond right away, instead studying Derek. He leaned against the counter. “Did she notice you tailing her?”

Derek shook his head, then groaned and leaned forward, his eyes closed as nausea swept over him.

The two bartenders looked at each other, but the younger bartender’s gaze was pointed with communication.

“What?” Jeff asked.

The younger one’s gaze eased, and he shrugged.

The other speaker leaned forward. “She left this on him.” He handed over the post-it, and Jeff grabbed it and read it.

“Oops?” He looked at the others. Were they playing a prank on him? He pointed at the drawing to the side of the word. “Is that a _smiley face?_ ”

Instead, they only nodded grimly. “Who _does_ that?” one of men demanded. “We’re badass, man. They can’t just leave post-its on us!”

“Yeah, real badass. Getting your ass handed to you by the womenfolk.” Jeff rolled his eyes.

The younger bartender was quiet again. This time, the silence stretched long enough that Jeff turned to him and said, “What? What are you thinking?”

The younger man heaved a sigh. “That she’s probably an agent, maybe federal. Nobody could take one of us out without training. And nobody would be stupid enough to mess with us if they were from around here. I don’t know exactly who she’s with, but I recognize the MO. Comes to the bar, looking for an old friend. Acts stupid and ditzy so we underestimate her. Then beats the ass of a guy at least twice her size.”

Derek held out his hands in a “what gives” gesture. Was _everyone_ going to dump on him today?

“Which means she’s probably still around,” he continued. “If she thinks we know anything about her friend. Agents finish their missions until something stops them.”

One of the men grinned. “We’re gonna stop her.”

The younger bartender nodded.

“There a chance she knows we know about her friend?” Jeff asked.

“Wait,” the man with Derek said. “ _Do_ we know about her friend?”

Jeff realized that the woman had only shown the picture to him and his coworker. “Yeah. Remember? That pretty little Asian chick that tried to get the better of us years back. Kept coming around and talking to people.”

“Hispanic,” the younger bartender said absently.

“Whatever. They all look alike, anyway.”

“Asians got that slant-eye thing, man.” One of the men demonstrated by pulling his eyelids back his fingers.

The younger bartender ignored them as he thought. He lifted a hand, and everyone in the bar fell silent. “The best vantage point to watch the bar is the hotel across the street.”

“She’s a hooker?”

Very slowly, the younger bartender closed his eyes and ran a hand down his face. “No, Al. She’s not a hooker. She’s just where the hookers go with the johns who can’t afford better.” He looked at Jeff in disbelief that anyone could be so stupid, but Jeff didn’t seem to understand what the look meant. “Look. I want you to split up. You five go that way. You four go that way.” He pointed each in different directions, having little faith that they could figure it out on their own. “Wait to cross the street until you get out of sight of the hotel, then go around the back so she doesn’t see you. Search that place room by room. Go from the bottom and work your way up. Keep in the group as much as possible. Don’t take her on one-on-one. Look _everywhere._ Do you understand?”

“Even where the hookers are?” Al asked hopefully.

Jesus Christ. He sent another look to Jeff. “Of _course_ you search the rooms with hookers in them. She might hide with them otherwise. Point is, you find her. Make _sure_ you find her. Try to keep her alive so we can find out who she’s with and throw them off the trail when we kill her. But if she doesn’t survive...” He shrugged. “I’m sure I can work with that.”

* * *

Sharon leaned forward as a group of nine men came out of the bar. “Where are you guys going?” she mused aloud. She watched as they took a minute to argue about going in different directions, and then five went one way and four went the other. Careful to keep her face far enough from the window that no one from the bar would be able to see her, she frowned after them, troubled. What were they up to? Searching for her? If so, why had some of them gone away from where she’d beaten up their friend?

Soon, the men were out of sight, and she turned her attention to the bar once again. There wasn’t anything else noteworthy happening, and she sighed and sank into her chair again as she made more notations in the notebook.

* * *

The younger bartender stood near the window, far enough away that he couldn’t be spotted through the dirty glass. It helped that the streetlights outside were brighter than the bar lights within, making it hard even for passersby to inside the bar, to say nothing of someone watching from across the street. As for whether he could see her... his eyes moved from window to window of the building across the street, searching methodically.

“Your ‘agent’ is showing,” Jeff called from across the room.

In response, he flipped Jeff off and kept searching. “You know one problem we’re going to have. Cops. Our boys aren’t gentle.”

Jeff joined him, surveying the scene across the street without getting close to the glass. In his case, it was less about staying hidden and more about how he knew some of the things that had touched the glass and never been fully removed. “No, they aren’t. I’ll make sure the power lines are cut - no working cell tower, no signal. And I’ll make sure the phone lines are cut just in case there’s still a landline in there. You do your thing.”

With no further ado, they separated, their eyes still on the hotel across the street.

* * *

Luke’s stepped slowed as they approached the bar. He knew Harlem wasn’t considered the best part of town, but it had nothing on Hell’s Kitchen. And this place made Hell’s Kitchen look like a pristine subdivision. Litter was thick on the streets, plastic bags and bottles and cigarette butts huddling in crevices. The cars in the area that could go, went. And he noticed that he and Claire were getting shady looks from the men milling around, nearly all of whom wore leather jackets or vests with patches sporting “14“ and “SS”. He could swear that one of the older guys was homeless, and even _he_ had a leather vest. The guy sneered at Luke as he and Claire walked past. Luke glanced around. “You know what we could also do? Call you a cab and let me handle this.”

“Think I can’t handle myself?” Claire asked. He looked down at her, and she could tell, could tell just as well as she could tell it was night, that he was trying to find the nicest, kindest way to tell her he didn’t want her where she might get hurt. She smiled and pointed at the ground. “Because I was thinking I’d actually back you up from out here. Away from immediate danger. With my taser at my side. We’re not all bulletproof.” Her smile softened. “But no, I’m not going home and waiting to hear what happens after the fact.”

Not for the first time, Luke reflected on how he had a tendency to fall for women who made up their minds and stuck to them. He could tell that Claire had made her decision.He looked down at her in a way that made her insides warm, and she smiled up at him as he kissed her forehead. A squeeze of her hand, and he was gone, leaving her to raise an eyebrow at the skinheads giving her an eye. She was almost tempted to taunt them so she could get them in range of her taser, or do worse. It wasn’t as if any of them had been trained by Colleen Wing.

* * *

Luke stepped into Shots Bar, and it took several seconds for his vision to adjust to the darkness. He nodded cautiously, almost respectfully, to the men inside. He could hear people around the bar, but by the windows, there were only three, none of whom appeared to work there. All three of them currently looked at him as if wondering if they should kill him now or if they should wait a couple minutes.

“Evening,” he greeted them. “I’m looking for somebody.”

“I don’t think anybody here knows you,” one of the older men said. “Matter of fact, I think you’re in the wrong place, boy.”

Luke gave a single shrug. He knew the word “boy” was to rankle him. And honestly, it _did_ get under his skin - better than any bullet. But he also knew that they wanted to get under his skin. That they wanted his reaction. And he’d be damned if he gave any white nationalist what they wanted. “Lookin’ for somebody. I’ll be happy to get out of your hair,” he looked pointedly at one of the bald heads nearby, “once you help me out. A woman. White. Blonde. Brown eyes. Beat up one of your guys earlier.”

The bartender strode over. Older, shorter than Luke by a head. “You seriously come in here asking where somebody like you can find a white girl?”

Luke grinned. “You’re lucky she’s the one I’m looking for. I know a white woman who would have beaten up _all_ your guys and while half drunk off her ass.”

“Enough of this,” one of the men growled. He jerked his head toward the other two men. “Teach him a lesson. We don’t want people like him around here. And we _especially_ don’t like people like him looking for our women.”

One of the men behind Luke grabbed a pool cue and clubbed him over the head. Luke glanced at him as the splinters fell to the ground. “All I want is to know more about her and I’ll go,” he said peaceably.

“Holy shit,” the man said, frozen in place as he stared at the broken pool cue shaft. “He’s one of them damn weirdos!”

Luke was so busy staring at him that he didn’t see another man across the bar grab a gun from behind a pinball machine. When he _did_ see it, he sighed, resigning himself to what was about it happen.

As the bullet hit his chest and burned a hole into his shirt, he threw the man still holding the broken pool cue at the man with the gun.

“I really did just come for answers,” he said, knowing it wouldn’t convince them to stop fighting and tell him what he wanted to know. So sue him, he was an optimist.

* * *

Claire jumped as she heard the gunshot inside, followed quickly by others. The men on the sidewalk barely spared her a glance before running inside.

She pulled out her cell and punched in the first number she knew would pick up; the more difficult number would come after. “Hey. It’s me. Do you think you could back me and Luke up with something real quick?”

* * *

Sharon jumped to her feet. She knew the sounds of gunshots. Her eyes cast about the bar across the street. The sidewalk outside was empty now, save for one woman on the corner. Her tawny skin and dark hair indicated she wouldn’t be welcome at the bar with all the white supremacists, and Sharon watched her for a moment, trying to figure out if she had anything to do with what was going on inside; the woman _was_ looking around and casting worried glances to the bar, where her black male companion had disappeared moments before. One hand held a cell phone to her ear; the other hand was in her bag, indicating she had a weapon. Was she the man’s backup? For defense or attack?

Sharon’s eyes were drawn back to the bar as more gunshots rang out. The dirty windows turned white with flashes of gunfire; shadows danced on the glass as lights swung back and forth, and there was more gunfire.

“To intervene or not to intervene,” she murmured to herself, already throwing her meager possessions in her knapsack, throwing on her jacket, and heading for the door. She slung the knapsack around her shoulders as she moved If nothing else, she didn’t feel great about the prospects for the woman who had been standing near the bar, or the man inside. And who were they? Was it an attack of some sort?

She closed the door behind her and strode toward the stairs. She made it to the fifth floor before she heard voices below. “-find the bitch.”

“Blonde and leggy doesn’t narrow it down, Derek. Or have you not noticed we’re in a damn whorehouse?”

“ _Brown eyes,_ ” Derek snapped impatiently, sounding as if he’d already said it multiple times before. 

The description struck her as familiar. Sharon hurried down more flights of stairs, listening as the others made their way up. There were at least four of them, judging from the footsteps and voices, but they were going slower than she was. She made it through the door and into the third floor hallway right before they turned the corner. She wasn’t sure if they’d seen the door close, but when it doubt, she had to assume the worst.

She didn’t have time to pick a lock and duck into a room. Instead, she broke into a run down the hall. She’d use the other stairwell to sneak out.

Behind her, the door to the stairwell opened. She heard shouts behind her and put on more speed

She was nearly to the opposite stairwell when a head ducked out of one of the rooms to see what the noise was about. White, bald. Beard. Grizzled. She grinned at him and changed her trajectory to punch him as she passed. She heard him fall as she ran on.

She reached for the stairwell door’s push handle just as it opened. She bounced off an overgrown bearded guy with the SS tattoos. She fell back and barely managed to keep from falling, grimly noting that he barely moved. Recognizing her - or rather, her description - he reached down, and she instinctively ducked, grabbing her garrotte from her ankle holster as she rolled away.

The man leered down at her and advanced.

There were still the men behind her, closer with every second, and without a second thought, Sharon quickly retraced her steps, running to the doorway where she had punched the man earlier. The space in the doorway was currently filled by a half-naked woman who was currently kicking the man, now unconscious and having a far worse day than he could have anticipated.

Sharon pulled her into the room as Sharon darted in; she only spared a glance for the second man, tied to the bed with what looked like a sock stuck in his mouth. Absently, she wondered if the sock was clean or not as she pulled the unconscious man into the room. Like the man she was dragging inside, the man on the bed was white, so pale that parts of him seemed almost translucent. His blond hair was bleached almost completely white. He had tattoos similar to those of the men outside.

The woman with him didn’t have to be told to close and lock the door; it was locked as soon as the man’s body was clear of it, and she jumped away from it immediately. Sharon beckoned her farther away from it, getting a good look at her for the first time. She didn’t like how thin the woman was, and she didn’t like the thought of what the men outside would do to her, with her tawny beige skin, her thick dark hair braided in a crown around her head. She didn’t look older than twenty. God, she didn’t even want to think of what the two men who’d been in here with her had planned. Sharon glanced at the man on the bed, not wanting to know why he was tied up, either.

She also wasn’t inclined to cut him lose, no matter how he thrashed on the bed and shouted through the gag.

The woman glared at her. “They’re looking for you.”

“Is it that obvious?” She grinned, but the girl didn’t grin back. “What’s your name?”

“Why you want to know?”

Sharon shrugged and turned to the window. She frowned. “Are those- they have bars on the windows? Seriously? This is a hotel. That’s against fire code!”

The woman looked at her as if she were crazy. “Yeah,” she said sarcastically, rubbing her arm; the shadow of a man’s hand darkened on her flesh. “Whoever thought a place that charges by the hour wouldn’t stay up to code?”

“Best way not to get caught is to look like you’re following the law,” Sharon said absently as she looked around the room. “It’s why you go the speed limit when you’ve got somebody in your trunk.” Spying the men’s belongings on the floor, she rooted through them. Wallets, complete with IDs, breath mints... she could guess what the blue pills were... and no gun. She tsked as she handed the wallet to the woman. “I’d say you’ve earned that.” 

The woman glanced at the man tied to the bed, then took out the cash and tossed the wallet in the trash can. “Yeah. I did.” The man on the bed shouted at them, but they ignored him.

Both of them also ignored the pounding on the door even though both of them knew the door couldn’t hold out much longer.

Sharon stood and went through her own bag, pulling out her Glock. She hesitated, then put it back. Guns just made things messy; she had to be smart. She set it back and slung the knapsack around her shoulders again, making sure the straps were pulled taut. Looking around the room again, her eyes fell on the man tied to the bed; he screamed at her through his gag. She walked over to him, and he quietly, sounding pleased with himself.

“Good move gagging this guy,” she told the woman. She gave him a whack with her baton and shook out her shoulders on the way back toward the door. Once she was sure he was unconscious, she joined the woman at the foot of the bed as the men outside continued to pound against the door. “I’ll clear a path and get them to follow me. Once they’re gone, you walk to the other stairwell like it’s just another day.”

The woman managed a faint chuckle. “Right. Just another goddamn day.”

“Get in the closet so they don’t see you,” Sharon instructed. She paused as an idea occurred to her. “Hey, you hang out here often?”

“‘Hang out?'” the woman echoed, incredulous. More pounding on the door; the wood splintered. She quickly stepped into the closet. “Yeah.” She closed the door.

Sharon felt a brief surge of hope as a thought occurred to her. “How long have you been here?” Sharon asked quickly.

She was interrupted by the door giving way and two of the men falling through nearly on top of each other. They tripped over the unconscious man on the floor, and she gave them both a rap with her baton, though not enough to knock them out, and leapt over them. One of the men behind in the hallway blindly lashed out and hit Sharon’s cheek. She was knocked back, but instantly sprang forward again, going low and hitting him and another man in the knees as she moved toward the stairwell. She rolled into the hall, seeing the leg from a kick headed for her too late to avoid completely. Remembering her training, training that had only become more intensive once she’d gone on the run, she grabbed his foot and pushed upward; the momentum carried him off balance.

She ran for the stairs and but took pains not to run as fast as her instincts told her to. She had to keep the others on her trail and hoping to catch her long enough that the woman could get away. She heard shouts behind her and risked a glance back as she reached the door to the stairwell.

They were closer than she’d thought, but it appeared the entire group was running after her. The smirk she cast over her shoulder was meant to infuriate them, and their angry shouts that followed her into the stairwell as she put on speed indicated that she had succeeded.

She ran upwards. The more she ascended, the louder the wheezing and gasping and cursing got beneath her, and the wider her smile grew.

A bullet hit the plaster behind her head, and her smile disappeared. Okay, so this might not be the best time to be cocky. She’d just have to hope that the woman had a chance to get safely out of the building. Right now, Sharon’s only goal was to escape.

More bullets hit the wall around her, narrowly missing her, and she held her closed garotte between them as if it were a shield as she ran for her life.


	4. Noor Inayat Khan iv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unexpected allies and enemies join together for a fight that doesn't go as Sharon expected. Behind the scenes, efforts to capture the fugitive Avengers ramp up, putting Sharon in the crosshairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Speaking of ramping up, things may be ramping up IRL, too. I'll try to have a new chapter in five days, but no later than a week!
> 
> Songs:  
> Bruno Mars, "Uptown Funk"  
> Saint Motel, "Move"

_New York, New York_  
A man hit the jukebox and slid off, hitting the buttons on his way to the floor. As the music began to play ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPf0YbXqDm0%E2%80%9C>x</a>\)</small>,%20Luke%20allowed%20himself%20a%20nod%20of%20approval%20before%20throwing%20another%20man%20into%20the%20opposite%20wall.%0A%0AOne%20man%20joined%20another%20under%20one%20of%20the%20tables.%20%E2%80%9CIsn%E2%80%99t%20this%20by%20that%20black%20kid?%E2%80%9D%0A%0AThe%20other%20man%20shrugged%20impatiently%20and%20moved%20farther%20back.%20%E2%80%9CNot%20like%20we%20get%20a%20choice%20in%20what%20songs%20they%20program.%20It%E2%80%99s%20New%20York,%20so%20they%20base%20it%20all%20on%20demographics%20or%20some-%E2%80%9D%20The%20table%20lifted%20above%20their%20heads,%20and%20they%20both%20looked%20up%20into%20Luke%E2%80%99s%20calm%20but%20determined%20face.%20%E2%80%9C-Shit.%E2%80%9D%0A%0AMoments%20later,%20Luke%20took%20one%20last%20look%20at%20the%20bar%20and%20hissed%20silently%20as%20if%20in%20solidarity%20with%20their%20pain.%20Several%20of%20the%20people%20had%20managed%20to%20clear%20out,%20and%20of%20the%20ones%20that%20were%20left,%20one%20was%20tangled%20in%20one%20of%20the%20barstools,%20another%20was%20unconscious%20under%20a%20window,%20and%20one%20was%20hanging%20from%20one%20of%20the%20billiards%20lights%20over%20the%20pool%20table.%20Only%20the%20bartender%20remained,%20peeking%20over%20the%20bar,%20his%20gun%20clicking%20emptily.%0A%0A%E2%80%9CLooks%20like%20you%E2%80%99re%20out%20of%20business%20for%20a%20while,%E2%80%9D%20Luke%20mused.%20%E2%80%9CShame.%E2%80%9D%20He%20grinned%20as%20he%20stepped%20outside,%20paused,%20and%20then%20moved%20to%20slam%20the%20door%20with%20all%20his%20strength.%20He%20grinned%20softly%20to%20himself%20as%20he%20heard%20something%20inside%20crash.%0A%0A%E2%80%9CYou%20done?%E2%80%9D%20Claire%20asked,%20her%20tone%20flat.%0A%0ALuke%20shrugged.%20%E2%80%9CThey%20didn%E2%80%99t%20want%20to%20talk.%E2%80%9D%20He%20eyed%20the%20cell%20phone%20in%20her%20hand.%20%E2%80%9CWhat%E2%80%99s%20up?%E2%80%9D%0A%0ABefore%20she%20could%20speak,%20he%20heard%20gunshots.%20People%20-%20or%20at%20least%20the%20smart%20ones%20-%20started%20running%20away.%20Luke%20looked%20at%20Claire,%20who%20was%20pulling%20her%20taser%20from%20her%20purse%20without%20taking%20her%20eyes%20from%20the%20hotel%20across%20the%20street.%0A%0A%E2%80%9CAt%20least%20<i>try</i>%20to%20stay%20out%20of%20trouble,%E2%80%9D%20he%20told%20her.%0A%0A%E2%80%9CI%E2%80%99ll%20try%20as%20hard%20as%20you%20do.%E2%80%9D%0A%0AHe%20spared%20a%20moment%20to%20flash%20her%20a%20grin,%20and%20then%20they%20both%20ran%20across%20the%20street,%20Luke%20into%20the%20building,%20and%20Claire%20to%20the%20sidewalk%20to%20help%20people%20escape%20and%20check%20them%20over%20for%20injuries.%20As%20much%20as%20she%20might%20have%20wanted%20to%20join%20him%20inside,%20they%20each%20had%20their%20specialties.%0A%0A<hr>%0A%0AIn%20a%20bar%20several%20blocks%20away%20where%20the%20lights%20were%20dim%20and%20the%20air%20was%20hazy%20with%20dust%20and%20regret,%20Jessica%20Jones%20sat%20with%20a%20shotglass%20and%20bottle%20of%20whiskey.%20As%20much%20as%20she%20was%20trying%20to%20open%20up,%20people%20still%20sucked.%20She%E2%80%99d%20never%20been%20what%20most%20people%20would%20call%20%E2%80%9Cnice.%E2%80%9D%20Not%20even%20%E2%80%9Cthoughtful%E2%80%9D%20or%20%E2%80%9Cconsiderate.%E2%80%9D%0A%0AJessica%20didn%E2%80%99t%20always%20understand%20why%20people%20were%20surprised.%20They%E2%80%99d%20met%20people,%20too.%20And%20people%20really,%20really%20sucked.%0A%0AHer%20phone%20buzzed.%20She%20hoped%20it%20wasn%E2%80%99t%20Trish%20again.%20It%20would%20just%20make%20Jessica%20wonder%20once%20again%20if%20she%20should%20go%20ahead%20and%20block%20the%20woman%20who%20had%20once%20been%20her%20sister.%20Fortunately,%20it%20wasn%E2%80%99t%20from%20her.%20Dodged%20that%20bullet.%0A%0AJessica%20set%20the%20phone%20down%20on%20the%20counter%20and%20downed%20the%20shot%20as%20she%20considered%20the%20situation.%20On%20the%20one%20hand,%20people%20really,%20really%20sucked.%0A%0AOn%20the%20other%20hand,%20there%20were%20some%20people%20who%20sucked%20a%20little%20less%20than%20others.%0A%0ADecided,%20she%20grabbed%20her%20phone%20and%20headed%20out.%0A%0A<hr>%0A%0ASharon%20came%20to%20the%20last%20landing.%20There%20was%20only%20one%20door%20left,%20and%20a%20sign%20proclaimed%20it%20was%20rigged%20to%20set%20off%20the%20fire%20alarm.%20She%20kicked%20her%20way%20through%20and%20spun%20to%20shut%20the%20door.%20After%20a%20second,%20she%20looked%20inside%20the%20stairwell,%20where%20the%20men%20were%20still%20running%20up%20the%20stairs.%20No%20alarm%20was%20blaring.%20She%20glanced%20at%20the%20sign%20again%20to%20make%20sure%20she%E2%80%99d%20read%20it%20right,%20then%20banged%20her%20fist%20against%20the%20handle%20a%20couple%20times.%20Still%20nothing.%20She%20rolled%20her%20eyes%20and%20slammed%20the%20door%20shut.%20%E2%80%9CThis%20hotel%20is%20<i>shit</i>.%E2%80%9D%0A%0AShe%20looked%20around%20the%20roof.%20Before%20her,%20the%20roof%20was%20cut%20off%20by%20a%20taller%20building,%20its%20windows%20boarded%20over.%20She%20knew%20from%20the%20layout%20that%20there%20was%20a%20major%20intersection%20on%20the%20other%20side%20-%20fat%20lot%20of%20good%20that%20would%20do%20her%20now.%20She%20looked%20to%20her%20left%20and%20right.%20On%20the%20left,%20the%20street,%20with%20Shots%20Bar%20directly%20across.%20On%20the%20right,%20an%20alley%20just%20large%20enough%20for%20delivery%20trucks%20to%20pass%20through.%20Behind%20her%20was%20another%20building,%20only%20two%20floors%20taller%20than%20the%20hotel,%20but%20still%20tall%20enough.%0A%0AA%20bullet%20hit%20her%20in%20the%20shoulder%20and%20fell%20uselessly%20away.%20She%20jumped%20into%20action,%20ducking%20around%20the%20back%20of%20the%20stairwell%20as%20more%20bullets%20flew%20past%20her.%0A%0A<hr>%0A%0ABack%20in%20the%20bar%20several%20blocks%20away,%20Jessica%20paused%20in%20the%20doorway.%0A%0ASpinning,%20she%20strode%20back%20toward%20the%20bar.%0A%0AShe%20grabbed%20the%20bottle%20of%20whiskey%20and%20headed%20out%20again.%0A%0A<hr>%0A%0A%E2%80%9CClaire!%E2%80%9D%0A%0AClaire%E2%80%99s%20head%20popped%20up%20from%20where%20she%20was%20tending%20to%20someone%E2%80%99s%20scraped%20elbow%20-%20honestly,%20staying%20outside%20was%20so%20boring%20she%E2%80%99d%20almost%20rather%20be%20inside,%20tasing%20people.%20Still,%20she%20was%20relieved%20to%20see%20Colleen%20and%20Danny%20down%20the%20street%20toward%20her,%20Colleen%E2%80%99s%20katana%20slung%20over%20her%20shoulder.%20Danny%20was%20wearing%20a%20business%20suit%20that%20cost%20more%20than%20her%20apartment,%20paired%20with%20no%20tie%20and%20a%20pair%20of%20broken-in%20slippers,%20his%20dark%20blond,%20curly%20hair%20mussed%20by%20their%20run%20over.%20Colleen,%20wearing%20black%20pants,%20a%20simple%20gray%20shirt,%20and%20a%20light,%20army-green%20jacket,%20looked%20much%20more%20put%20together.%20Her%20long%20black%20hair%20was%20tied%20back%20in%20a%20ponytail,%20with%20only%20a%20few%20strands%20out%20of%20place%20after%20their%20run.%20Claire%20didn%E2%80%99t%20know%20where%20they%E2%80%99d%20left%20the%20taxi,%20but%20neither%20Danny%E2%80%99s%20faintly%20tanned%20features%20nor%20Colleen%E2%80%99s%20olive%20ones%20betrayed%20any%20signs%20of%20exertion%20or%20fatigue.%20But%20of%20course,%20they%20wouldn%E2%80%99t.%20She%E2%80%99d%20seen%20them%20both%20in%20action%20-%20it%20would%20take%20more%20than%20a%20run%20to%20tire%20them%20out.%0A%0AThey%20slowed%20down%20as%20they%20approached,%20and%20then%20Claire%20heard%20more%20gunfire%20from%20above.%20Resigned%20to%20missing%20out%20on%20the%20action,%20she%20waved%20them%20toward%20the%20stairs.%0A%0A%E2%80%9CSafer%20out%20here,%20huh?%E2%80%9D%20she%20said%20to%20the%20woman%20she%20was%20helping,%20smiling%20a%20smile%20she%20didn%E2%80%99t%20feel.%0A%0A%E2%80%9CTell%20me%20about%20it,%E2%80%9D%20the%20woman%20said,%20rubbing%20her%20elbow.%20%E2%80%9CThis%20neighborhood%20was%20safer%20when%20Fisk%20was%20in%20charge.%E2%80%9D%0A%0AClaire%20forced%20herself%20not%20to%20say%20anything.%20The%20woman%20got%20up%20without%20saying%20anything%20more%20and,%20typical%20of%20how%20Claire%E2%80%99s%20day%20was%20going,%20didn%E2%80%99t%20even%20look%20at%20her%20as%20she%20walked%20away.%20Once%20the%20woman%20was%20gone,%20Claire%20straightened%20and%20took%20a%20breath%20of%20what%20passed%20for%20fresh%20air.%0A%0ATurning%20around%20to%20see%20how%20everyone%20else%20in%20the%20crowd%20was%20faring,%20she%20noted%20with%20approval%20that%20there%20was%20no%20panic.%20They%20milled%20around%20at%20the%20end%20of%20the%20street,%20where%20a%20tall%20building%20blocked%20gunfire%20from%20the%20shorter%20hotel%20roof%20in%20the%20middle%20of%20the%20street.%20Most%20of%20them%20then%20seemed%20to%20go%20about%20their%20business%20as%20normal,%20though%20some%20gathered%20to%20wait%20until%20things%20quieted.%20In%20the%20buildings%20around%20the%20hotel,%20Claire%20could%20see%20lights%20from%20the%20windows%20where%20people%20were%20filming%20the%20scene%20on%20their%20cell%20phones,%20and%20she%20couldn%E2%80%99t%20do%20anything%20more%20than%20hope%20they%20were%20protecting%20themselves%20as%20much%20as%20possible.%20%0A%0AShe%20frowned%20as%20she%20felt%20the%20familiar%20sensation%20of%20being%20watched%20and%20turned%20more%20slowly,%20trying%20to%20watch%20people%20out%20of%20the%20corner%20of%20her%20eye.%20There.%20A%20young%20woman%20at%20the%20end%20of%20the%20street,%20peeking%20around%20the%20building.%20Afro-Latina,%20maybe?%20Barely%20eighteen,%20if%20that.%20She%20looked%20like%20she%E2%80%99d%20been%20roughed%20up.%20Her%20eyes%20were%20large,%20and%20even%20though%20the%20girl%20was%20obviously%20assessing%20Claire,%20she%20still%20looked%20afraid.%0A%0AShe%20looked%20even%20more%20afraid%20when%20Claire%20looked%20at%20her%20directly.%20She%20immediately%20darting%20into%20the%20crowd.%0A%0A%E2%80%9CHey!%E2%80%9D%20Claire%20ran%20down%20the%20sidewalk%20after%20her.%20In%20typical%20New%20York%20fashion,%20no%20one%20in%20the%20crowd%20moved%20to%20stop%20the%20girl.%20She%20couldn%E2%80%99t%20blame%20them%20-%20why%20take%20the%20time%20to%20stop%20someone%20who%20was%20running%20away%20from%20gunshots?%20But%20what%20Claire%20wanted%20to%20know%20was%20why%20the%20girl%20was%20running%20at%20all.%20She%20had%20to%20be%20involved%20in%20what%20was%20going%20on,%20but%20how?%20She%20was%20scared,%20but%20of%20whom?%20She%20pushed%20and%20shoved%20and%20wound%20her%20way%20through%20the%20gaggle%20of%20people,%20only%20catching%20glimpses%20of%20the%20girl.%0A%0AThe%20girl%20turned%20a%20corner,%20glanced%20behind%20her,%20saw%20Claire,%20and%20ran%20faster.%20Claire%20put%20on%20more%20speed,%20too,%20undeterred%20when%20she%20saw%20the%20girl%20turn%20a%20corner%20into%20the%20alley%20that%20would%20lead%20behind%20the%20hotel.%20Claire%20ran%20after%20her.%20%0A%0AThe%20girl%20was%20gone.%20There%20was%20nothing%20in%20the%20alley%20but%20trash,%20dumpsters%20and%20a%20couple%20abandoned%20delivery%20trucks.%0A%0AThere%20was%20more%20gunfire%20up%20above,%20and%20Claire%20instinctively%20looked%20up.%20She%20didn%E2%80%99t%20see%20anything,%20but%20she%20didn%E2%80%99t%20trust%20her%20luck,%20either.%20She%20quickly%20pressed%20herself%20against%20the%20building,%20gagging%20as%20her%20hand%20hit%20something%20wet%20and%20cold%20on%20the%20wall.%20Upon%20inspection,%20it%20looked%20like%20the%20remnants%20of%20someone%E2%80%99s%20stomach.%20%E2%80%9CGreat.%20Just%20how%20I%20wanted%20my%20night%20to%20go,%E2%80%9D%20she%20said,%20her%20tone%20dour%20as%20she%20fished%20in%20her%20purse%20for%20hand%20sanitizer%20with%20her%20free%20hand.%0A%0A<hr>%0A%0AJessica%20rolled%20her%20eyes%20as%20one%20of%20the%20other%20women%20on%20the%20subway%20platform%20stared%20at%20her%20bottle%20of%20whiskey.%20The%20woman%20had%20a%20kid%20with%20her,%20about%20four%20years%20old,%20and%20Jessica%20made%20eye%20contact%20with%20the%20woman%20before%20chugging%20down%20several%20gulps.%0A%0A<hr>%0A%0ASlager%20and%20his%20friends%20always%20went%20to%20Shots%20Bar%20after%20work.%20It%20was%20one%20of%20the%20few%20places%20where%20they%20could%20go%20and%20be%20themselves,%20not%20worry%20about%20other%20people%20intruding%20on%20their%20space%20and%20talk%20about%20ways%20to%20fix%20the%20world.%20They%20never%20did%20anything%20about%20it%20except%20give%20Jeff%20a%20donation%20every%20now%20and%20then,%20but%20it%20<i>felt</i>%20like%20they%20were%20making%20a%20difference.%0A%0AHe%20and%20his%20friends%20were%20laughing%20about%20the%20black%20kids%20eyeing%20them%20from%20down%20the%20street%20when%20they%20let%20themselves%20into%20the%20bar.%20Slager%20had%20to%20pull%20harder%20on%20the%20door%20to%20get%20it%20to%20open,%20but%20he%20didn%E2%80%99t%20think%20anything%20of%20it%20until%20he%20stepped%20inside%20and%20saw%20the%20broken%20furniture%20and%20men%20curled%20up%20on%20the%20floor,%20their%20moans%20barely%20audible%20underneath%20the%20sound%20of%20Bruno%20Mars%E2%80%99%20%E2%80%9CUptown%20Funk.%E2%80%9D%0A%0A%E2%80%9CHoly%20shit!%E2%80%9D%20The%20place%20looked%20like%20a%20tornado%20had%20ripped%20through%20it,%20but%20in%20this%20neighborhood,%20it%20was%20more%20likely%20to%20be%20a%20person%20rather%20than%20a%20force%20of%20nature.%20The%20neighborhood%20demographics%20were%20one%20of%20the%20most%20popular%20topics%20at%20the%20bar.%20It%20looked%20like%20someone%20had%20finally%20made%20a%20move.%20%E2%80%9CWant%20me%20to%20call%20the%20cops?%E2%80%9D%20Slager%20asked,%20pulling%20out%20his%20phone.%20At%20Jeff%E2%80%99s%20hostile%20glare,%20he%20slipped%20it%20back%20into%20his%20pocket.%0A%0AJeff%20glowered%20at%20him%20from%20behind%20the%20counter.%20He%20held%20the%20phone%20to%20his%20ear%20and%20pressed%20the%20plunger%20several%20times%20before%20scowling.%20%E2%80%9CCell%20phone%20tower%20is%20down.%20Which%20means%20we%20can%E2%80%99t%20rely%20on%20the%20cops%20handling%20this%20for%20us.%E2%80%9D%20He%20pointed%20over%20Slager%E2%80%99s%20shoulder.%20%E2%80%9CSome%20black%20guy%20tore%20up%20the%20place.%20Bald.%20Yellow%20shirt.%20Freak.%20And%20there%E2%80%99s%20also%20some%20blonde%20chick%20-%20tall%20as%20a%20house%20or%20something.%20Leggy.%20Brown%20eyes.%20Black%20guy%20should%20be%20around%20here%20somewhere.%20Blondie%20should%20be%20across%20the%20street.%20Find%20them.%20Kill%20them.%E2%80%9D%0A%0A%E2%80%9CAcross%20the%20street?%E2%80%9D%20Slager%20turned%20to%20look%20over%20his%20shoulder.%0A%0AJeff%20nodded,%20exaggerating%20the%20movement.%20%E2%80%9CYes.%20Now%20<i>go%20get%20them.</i>%E2%80%9D%20The%20music%20faded%20out,%20only%20to%20restart%20with%20the%20same%20song%20<small>\(<a%20href=)). And _somebody. Fix that damn music!”_

As Slager motioned for his friends to head outside again, he saw someone out of the corner of his eye dragging himself over to the jukebox.

“Place has kind of gone down hill,” Byrd said.

“Come on,” Slager said uncomfortably. He didn’t want these people pissed off at him if they thought he wasn’t pulling his weight.

Still, he wasn’t as rebellious as the other regulars at Shots Bar: He looked both ways before he crossed the street.

* * *

“Is she even bleeding?” one of the men shouted to the others as they ran onto the roof. “I know I hit her! Right in the back!”

Sharon, listening from the other side of the roof access enclosure, slung her knapsack forward and crouched down. Weirdly enough, she could hear “Uptown Funk” from across the street.She pulled out her Glock, her hand wrapping comfortably around the hilt. Grabbing the straps to sling the bag over her shoulder, she eyed one of the front pockets.

“No blood, man. Either missed her or she’s one of those weirdo freaks.”

“Idiot probably missed her,” one of the others said. “‘Oooooh, look at me, I totally shot the bitch!’ Suuuuuuuuuuure, you did. Idiot.”

Sharon pulled a compact from the pocket. It was silver, too chunky to be considered sleek. It was obviously old, older than some people realized, and certainly older than the hints of tarnish suggested. Her thumb slid over the latch too lightly to open it. At the loud teasing aimed at the man who had shot her, she quickly dropped the compact back in the pocket and secured it. Another moment saw her return the Glock as well. She slid her bag onto her back again. As she surveyed her exit options, she slid the garrotte into its place at her calf. Just because brawling was an option, she thought, didn’t mean it had to be her first option.

“Shut up!” the man who’d shot her snapped. “Let’s just kill the bitch. Where’d she go?”

They split up, fanning out around the enclosure, and Sharon watched from where she crouched silently on the enclosure’s roof. Five men. The same number she’d counted in the hall. That meant they’d all followed her.

Unseen by anyone, unrealized by herself, she smirked.

* * *

People were thinning out inside the building, and Danny and Colleen glanced at each other before heading upstairs.

“Still no idea what this is?” Danny asked.

“Gunshots,” Colleen said. “All we know is there are gunshots.”

“I hope it’s not the Hand again.”

“If it is, I say we burn this whole city to the ground,” Colleen said firmly. Her steps slowed as she got to the second story landing, where the door had been ripped off the hinges and placed carefully to the side. Colleen and Danny glanced at each other before slipping inside, Colleen’s katana at the ready as she led the way. A man lay just inside the room, and there was another man - so pasty white it made Colleen frown in concern - tied to the bed. Both were unconscious. Other than themselves and the two men, the room was empty.

Hearing something in the hall, Colleen quickly pressed herself against the wall beside the door, Danny moving to the opposite wall just out of sight. Colleen peeked around the doorway and relaxed as she saw the familiar figure wearing a yellow T-shirt. “It’s Luke.”

Danny relaxed, too, and led the way into the hall. “Hey, man, what’s up?”

Turning, Luke gave them a warm grin as he recognized them, seemingly unbothered by the bulletholes in his clothes.“Some people on their way out swore there were some very bad people on this floor. You two get some new hobbies I should know about?”

Danny shook his head. “We were following the gunshots, but-” He glanced back at the guys and shrugged. “What happened here?”

“Don’t know yet.” Luke studied the men in silence before moving toward the stairs. “Guessing it has something to do with the Nazi bar across the street.”

“The what?” Danny quickly fell into step behind him, leaving Colleen to bring up the rear. “Those guys are still around?”

“Yeah. They don’t always call themselves Nazis these days, but that’s basically what they are.” He glanced back at the room with the unconscious guests. “They might be gone by now.”

“But you’re checking anyway,” Colleen said wryly, “because you’re that sort of guy.”

“And we’re going with you,” Danny chimed in, “because we’re a team.”

Luke picked up speed as he climbed the steps, in part to hide his embarrassment. 

Danny, of course, didn’t seem to notice. As much as Colleen appreciated how optimistic he could be, she wished he could realize that Luke and Jessica had avoided them ever since they’d fought the Hand. Ever since Matt Murdock had died.

Luke stopped at the next landing and turned toward them. “You two clear this one. I’ll get the next one.”

Colleen almost said she could search a floor on her own, but then she realized that Danny was still naive enough to get into trouble. He might be able to take care of him in a fight - more or less - but there were still too many things that he didn’t consider to be threats. She nodded. “Shout if you need us.”

* * *

“She’s not here?”

“She must have jumped off the roof! Everybody- look! Fast!” They split up and ran to whatever side of the building they were closest to.

Across the street, they had evidently fixed the jukebox. It started playing a different song ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9DZkj8Rq6g)), and after listening from the roof of the enclosure, Sharon grinned to herself. She could work with that.

Sharon silently dropped from the roof and fell in behind the man who’d shot her in her back. By the time he reached the street side of the building, she was ten feet away. By the time he leaned as far as he could over the parapet, using his hands to lean farther than was wise, she was right behind him.

“If she jumped, it wasn’t on my si-”

She could have questioned him. If she’d had time, perhaps she would have. As it was, she grabbed his ankles and lifted, letting his weight pull him downward.

“Payback’s a bitch!” she called after him. Realizing that sounded a little too generic, she added, “Asshole!” Smug in her stinging witticism, she turned to face the other four and stumbled back as a shot hit her in the chest. “Damn it.” Maybe she should have kept her stinging witticisms to herself a while longer. A glance at each of the four to determine the greatest threat, and she ran toward her most recent shooter, the one with the clear shot and the fast draw. He continued shooting, and she could feel the bullets bouncing off her suit as she raced across the rooftop toward him.

A spinning high kick to the head, and he went down. Sharon used the momentum from the kick to sweep up his gun and end the move on one knee, the gun raised at the other two men who were running over. The last man didn’t seem to be in any hurry.

“Head shots, Bill! She’s wearing kevlar or something!” The speaker stood beside the enclosure, and Sharon glared at him. He had enough brain cells to realize she wore bulletproof clothing, and foresight enough to identify the enclosure as a protective barrier. She doubted she’d be able to get rid of him as easily as she had the first man.

The other two men stopped and broke off, tucking themselves behind air conditioning equipment in two separate directions. They aimed for her head, showing they’d heard the snitch, and Sharon managed to block the bullets by using an arm as a suit. But her arm wouldn’t be able to protect her completely, and it was hard to see and assess the situation when she couldn’t see around her arm. Damn it.

She started kicking herself for not using her Glock sooner. If she got out of this - which she _would,_ because getting killed by weak-ass white supremacists would just be _embarrassing_ \- she was keeping her Glock more easily accessible.

Shots were coming in from her left and ahead of her. She couldn’t outrun a bullet. They were too far away, and even idiots could hit the broad side of a barn. She was running out of time.

She did the only thing she could think to do under the circumstances - she lay down cover fire, trying to shoot all three of them, or at least, in each of their directions. She jumped to her feet, her arm held in front of her face as she jumped to the parapet. She surveyed the distance to the next building. Too far. Down below was an alley, and she didn’t like the options there, either. She was five stories up; the suit couldn’t save her from everything.

A bullet brushed past her; a wisp of her hair floated away on the breeze.

She kept shooting and felt another bullet hit her hip.

Time to go, she thought, hating what she was about to do. She took a breath and launched herself as far as she could across the alley. Briefly, she considered using the garrote to catch a clothesline or something similar to slow her descent, but there was nothing to catch the garrote on. There was only a dumpster, five stories down below. She was liking her plan less and less. Heh. Plan. Right. That’s what it was. Goddamn it.

“Shit shit shit shit shit.” She got her borrowed gun ready to fire upwards and hoped no one had thrown away a bunch of rusty knives lately.

* * *

Now what?

Claire looked up and down the alley, wondering if she should keep looking for the girl or head back to meet with Luke. There were two stairwells to check, after all. Of course, now that he had Colleen and Danny helping, they could handle two stairwells between three people. 

She hated feeling useless.

She pulled out her phone to see how close Jessica was, or even if she was coming at all. Jessica had a lot of skills, but communication wasn’t among them. No sooner had she hit “Send” than more gunfire broke out overhead. She ducked instinctively, pressed herself against the building again, and looked upward.

A woman was falling off the building. No, not falling. The arc was wrong for that; she’d _jumped._

The next few seconds were only a series of impressions - blond hair; gun aimed at the rooftop above; the woman curling as she fell closer to the dumpster, the woman saying, “Shitshitshitshitshit.”

And then the sickening crash and the cloud of dust of debris.

Claire blinked at the dumpster as the cloud of dust floated upwards and slowly dispersed.

The silence was broken by the woman’s voice echoing inside the dumpster. “Craaaaaaaaaaap.”

Claire sprang into action, racing to the side of the dumpster and climbing up to peer over the edge. “Are you okay? SHIT!” She tried to jump away as she saw the gun pointed in her face, only to find the woman’s hand around her wrist and wrenching her into the dumpster. “I have a taser!”

“Trust me!” The woman pinned Claire to the inside of the dumpster, gun still raised at the rooftop above.

Claire heard gunshots, and the woman pushed Claire down, lying on top of her. “Um. I don’t really know you... And this is...”

The lid of the dumpster slammed down.

“Okay,” the woman said conversationally. Her voice echoed. “This could be bad. Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of this.”

“You’ll get _me_ out of this,” Claire said, alarmed. “You know we’re in the same dumpster, right?”

Something fell against the lid, something hard. If Claire had to guess, she’d say it was human-sized, too. There was a series of dull thuds. In the dim light seeping into the dumpster through holes in the metal and a slit beneath the lid, the two women turned their heads to follow the noise.

The silence stretched, and the woman raised the gun toward the lid.

The next time something hit the lid, the plastic caved inward. Claire could see part of a man’s thigh; his foot was over her head. Seconds passed, and the man was dragged away as if he weighed nothing. Relief washed over her. _Luke._

Claire reached over and put her hand on the woman’s gun arm. “I know the people out there. We can trust them.”

“The white nationalists?” the woman asked, incredulous.

“No, I- Do I _look_ like I would trust a white nationalist?”

The woman glanced at her in the near-darkness. “Who’s out there other than the white nationalists?”

“The Defenders,” Claire said, a trace of pride in her voice.

The woman stared at her in incomprehension.

Claire sighed, exasperated. Obviously, that would need more time to catch on. “They’re a bunch of weirdos who try to help people. Like the Avengers, except less global. More focused on New York than anywhere else.”

There was another sound from outside. Claire recognized it as bones breaking. Only if she had to guess, it sounded like many bones breaking in quick succession.

The lid rose, and a familiar head with a heart-shaped face, pale skin, a sulky mouth, and straight, raven-black hair appeared. “You okay?”

“That’s Jessica,” Claire explained. After a moment, the woman rolled off of her, and Claire climbed out of the dumpster. “Jessica Jones. She’s a private investigator. I’m Claire Temple.”

Jessica tipped a bottle to her lips, and Claire tried not to sigh when she saw it was a bottle of whiskey.

“Hey, Jess!” They turned to look to the roof, where Danny leaned over the parapet. “Is he okay?”

They looked at the man in the middle of the alley, the blood pulling around him, part of his head caved in, and his eyes staring blindly upward.

“Yeah,” Jess shouted back. “He’s just taking a nap.”

She looked at Claire. “We should get out of here.” She eyed the blonde woman suspiciously.

“Oh, she’s coming, too,” Claire said. They needed to find out what she could do, help her if she needed it. She’d tried to protect Claire inside the dumpster- it wasn’t as if she was with the Hand. Who knew? She might be able to join the Defenders and give Luke and the others something to focus on other than Matt’s death.

“Apparently, I’m coming, too,” the woman acquiesced. She looked from Danny to the dead man on the ground again, but she didn’t say anything more.

* * *

 _Pentagon, Washington, DC_  
“You have to admit, it looks bad,” Gey said. He was a narrow man, absent of presence. His skin was sallow, his white mustache a ghost. His salt and pepper hair, mostly salted at this point, clung to his scalp. His face, even his bulbous nose, was overwhelmed by his browline glasses. He pronounced his last name as “guy,” and never forgot people who mispronounced it. 

Thaddeus Ross sat unmoving in his seat at the far end of the table, staring down the three men at the other end. For all of the Pentagon’s budget, the room suggested an interrogation more than welcoming a guest. The long table was heavy and wooden but scarred. The ten gray seats, four of them taken, were capable of spinning, but Ross had noticed that a couple of them didn’t have all of their wheels. The whole room gave the impression it was either where underlings pretended to be higher-ups, or it was a doghouse. Given his failure to bring in the fugitives, Ross suspected it was the latter.

“You’ve been looking for the fugitive Avengers for almost three years now,” Gey continued. He was so far up above Ross’s pay grade that Ross had only seen some of his insignia in diagrams. Gey was the lowest-ranked for the military officials before him. None of them looked happy, even by military standards. “Almost three years, and you still haven’t found them. Is there any reason you can give to justify keeping you on this when you have failed on every point?”

Ross met the eyes of each of them in turn. Gey was the most talkative, with Kligman coming in a far second. Watson had barely said anything at all and even now didn’t look up from a folder. “I won’t make excuses. Rogers has been faster than me and my team at every turn. He’s getting funding from somewhere, and we haven’t found it. He has a base somewhere, and we haven’t found it.”

“Have you found anything?” Kligman asked, his tone wry. He was the shortest man in the room, with a black crew cut and weak jaw. His skin was pale but leathered, indicating time outside without sunscreen in his youth. His glasses were clear and large. His dark eyes watched Ross as a thin eyebrow rose in challenge.

Ross tried not to murder the man with his eyes alone. Ross had fought stronger men without batting an eye - if Kligman weren’t hiding behind his insignia and authority, Ross would end him in seconds. Instead, he took a breath. “We’re gathering evidence that the person who has been feeding him intel and funding is Sharon Margaret Carter.”

“Sharon Margaret Carter,” Gey echoed. “Any relation to-”

Ross nodded. “Margaret Carter’s great-niece.”

Kligman let out a low whistle, and Gey nodded his head.

“Yeah,” Gey said after several seconds of consideration. “She’d have reason to be loyal to him. What evidence do you have?”

“She went missing at the same time as Rogers’ shield and Wilson’s wings. She wasn’t at the fight between the Avengers - we think she was using that as a distraction to disappear. But she’s popped up on CCTV a couple times; Rogers and his team were spotted there shortly thereafter. We’re already going through more footage to find more connections.”

Gey’s eyes moved to the others, and then he leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers before him. “Have you talked to Tony Stark? The Starks and Carters used to be close.”

“I have. He was as... helpful as always.”

“He didn’t give you anything.”

“No, sir, but I wasn’t expecting him to. Stark’s smart, but the problem is, he thinks he’s smarter than he actually is. I’ve got a team working to put monitoring equipment on him that even he won’t detect; it’ll be ready within the week. God bless the PATRIOT Act.” He said it as if it were a joke, but there was nothing in his features to suggest humor. “Meanwhile, we’re focusing more resources on Carter. She doesn’t have Rogers’ resources, powers, or protections. We get her, we get Rogers.”

Silence fell, and Ross made no move to break it.

“Even when you catch Rogers - _if_ you do - you’ll need to bring him in. Put him on trial.Rogers’ approval numbers are... climbing,” Gey said cautiously. “He took a hell of a hit, and they’re still in the can, but people like him as a rebel. Not all people, obviously. Not the real patriots. But there are plenty of others who still see him as an American hero, and they think he’s been wronged. Some of them think he was right about the Accords.”

“Of course they do.” Ross looked amused for the first time since the meeting had begun. “The President’s approval numbers go up every time he doesn’t talk, too. People like the idea of him more than the practice. It won’t be easy to destroy, but it can be done.”

Kligman glanced at the still-silent Watson to get his take before looking back to Ross. Watson hadn’t done a thing. “How could we do that?”

Ross glanced down at the table. “I can only tell you what I know. Rogers didn’t like the Accords, but he had ample opportunity to go over them and edit them. Stark worked with us from the beginning. Rogers read over them in less than a week and refused to compromise. Then, as soon as his best friend was in trouble, the Accords went out the window for him. He didn’t give a crap.” Ross shrugged. “It was all about protecting his friend from justice. And yes, Bucky Barnes was framed for the UN hit, but Barnes is still a murderer. He was an assassination for Hydra for decades. Rogers had the chance to get Barnes counseling, to get him a reduced sentence or no sentence at all if they could prove brainwashing. Instead, he chose to run.”

Gey gazed at Ross. “It sounds like we have enough for a character assassination.” He glanced at Watson. “A character assassination of Captain America could backfire.”

“I’m not suggesting a character assassination,” Ross interrupted, his voice cautious but firm.

“It’s still worth considering,” Gey countered. “The less support he has, the fewer resources. The fewer people protecting him.” 

“He might be screwing his dead lover’s great-niece,” Kligman said dismissively. “He’s _probably_ screwing his dead ex’s great-niece. That’ll turn people off of him. We report it as being Margaret Carter’s granddaughter once or twice, plant it in the press that way, and people will think he’s a pervert in no time. Turn on him. And her.” He looked to Ross. “That would help you catch her, right? You said so yourself - we get her, we get Rogers.”

Ross got to his feet. He understood that his job was to bring in Rogers Technically, he was beneath each of the three men across from him, but he’d found that confidence was key. So long as he did something with confidence and intention, people would follow him. Even his superiors. Sure enough, Gey and Kligman stood up automatically before looking at themselves and each other uncomfortably. They furtively glanced at Watson, who continued to sit as still as stone.

“There’s only so much my team can do, and we’re doing it. You want to help get Rogers, make sure nobody helps him, then you release the report that finds he betrayed his country and the UN for a former Hydra assassin. Let it leak that Margaret Carter’s great-niece is helping him. But I strongly advise sticking only to the facts.”

“What do you want released first?” Watson seemed bored by the conversation. His eyes were still on the folder, but he was obviously following along. He was completely bald, and underneath his uniform his body looked soft. He’d seen better days, and his grizzled, hardened face suggested he’d eaten the better days and spat them out again out of spite. Ross could almost see him extinguishing a cigarette, Winston-Churchill style.

“Sharon Carter is suspected of helping the fugitive Avengers. We get her, we take away Captain America’s girl Friday, we take away his intel and possibly his moneybags. Not to mention that she’ll know where he is and how to get in contact with him, and he might even come after her.”

“Lover’s instinct or uncle’s?” Gey asked.

Ross shrugged. “Does it matter? Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen.”

As he strode toward the door, Watson spoke. “Ross.”

A muscle in Ross’s jaw that typically only showed up after missing Rogers’ team started thumping. He forced himself to stop. “Sir.”

“Just a word of warning. Meant as friendly advice.” Watson didn’t bother looking up at him. “There’s more than just your career on the line here.”

Ross glanced at Gey and Kligman. “I’m sure, sir.”

“Your daughter.”

 _That_ got Ross’s attention. He looked anew at Watson, his fists tightening. “Sir?”

“Cellular biologist. Bright woman. Smart. Driven. One of the best in her field. Hasn’t talked to you in years, I understand. Took up with the Hulk, who Hulk hasn’t been seen for years. You didn’t like that, did you.” Ross didn’t answer, and Watson nodded slowly. “Very smart woman. At her level, most of the contracts are from the government.”

He fell silent, and Ross waited for him to continue. When the silence went on, he shifted his weight. “Meaning?”

“Meaning that it isn’t just your job on the line. It’s all well and good that you _want_ to bring in Captain America and his team, but you have to _do_ it. You’ve had nearly three years, and that’s enough to try even the American government’s patience.” Watson turned to Ross and met him squarely in the eyes. “You were only motivated by a sense of duty before, and you have nothing but a vague lead and a plan with psychological mumbo-jumbo to show for it. Let’s see how this... _friendly_ motivation works. Find the fugitive Avengers. Find Carter. Crucify her, if you have to. But find out what she knows. Rogers and his friends _will_ be brought to justice. Is that understood?”

“Understood, sir.”


	5. Marie-Madeleine Fourcade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An enemy no one yet knows about makes its first move, but at least Sharon is getting some laundry done. And making allies? Maybe?
> 
> Meanwhile, Tony's search for her means he has to bring in someone he trusts, even though it means putting her at risk. Fortunately, Pepper Potts can handle it. It's always good to have someone in the group who knows what they're doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S BEEN SO LONG.
> 
> So basically I was writing 15 pages a day and got exhausted. It didn't help that while editing, I had to change a lot of the dynamics. Jessica Jones season two changed some things, Infinity War changed... weirdly fewer things, lol. But I want to get the dynamics right, so I've slowed things down so I can do the best I can.
> 
> Sorry for taking so long! I no longer promise anything, lol. Editing is fun, but a challenge.

#  _Marie-Madeleine Fourcade_

_Marie-Madeleine Fourcade began her spy work as a lowly undercover agent for a spy magazine written by Georges Loustaunau-Lacau. Georges was convinced that the war would be won or lost based on espionage Under his leadership, she divided France into sectors and set up spy networks within each sector, making her a founding member of the spy network soon known as Alliance._

_Georges was soon arrested, leaving Marie-Madeleine to take care of the over 3,000 resistance agents. In 1942, Britain, impressed with her network, sent her a radio operator who betrayed Marie-Madeleine and several of her units to the Germans. Marie-Madeleine escaped and continued her efforts while in hiding, and later, after being called to safety in England, from a house in Chelsea._

_After the betrayal, she reworked the Alliance and gave all agents animals to use as code names. She herself took the unassuming code name of Hedgehog. As a result, the network was soon dubbed by the Nazis as Noah’s Ark._

_She was again captured by the Nazis in 1944, and again escaped to resume her activities. Of the 3,000 resistance agents she was responsible for, one third were executed, and Marie-Madeleine cared for their loved ones’ relatives, her network’s survivors, and their relatives until her peaceful death in 1989._

_Buenos Aires, Argentina_  
Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, was a vibrant city on the shore of the Rio de La Plata. Covering seventy-eight miles, it was home to over two million people, and the city was full of parks and theaters to provide them with relaxation and entertainment. In the city alone, there were twenty-four professional football teams; it had recently hosted the World Cup, and would soon host the Summer Youth Olympics. There were cathedrals, museums, universities, and one of the world’s most renowned national libraries. The buildings were an eclectic mix of styles, from colonial to French Bourbon to art deco to postmodern, mirroring the city’s eclectic history and cultures. The city was a hub of finance, industry, and cultural arts in Argentina, and its liveliness and economic standing in the world only served to reinforce its success.

Its location, and its distance from Europe, had made the port city a popular destination during the tumultuous 1940s. The city’s usefulness to Germans at the time began nobly enough as German citizens targeted by the Nazis fled abroad. As the tide turn, it was the Nazis who fled the Allies, and Argentina’s leaders had seen the value of drawing the Nazis’ wealth, whether it had been stolen from their victims or not, to their country.

The fleeing Nazis had more to offer than wealth; some of them were scientists. As people grew tired, even resentful, of war on the battlefield, countries turned their efforts toward wars between labs and scientific pioneering, seeking to one-up each other in discoveries on earth and explorations in space. Argentina was not the only country to see the potential benefits of bringing in scientists, no matter what the scientists’ personal philosophies were.

Adolf Eichmann was not one of the desired scientists. He wasn’t a scientist at all. A mere SS lieutenant colonel, he was the man who masterminded the transport of European Jews to concentration camps. He was not lured to the country by any enticement of Argentina’s; he fled there like a mouse fleeing a hungry cat. He adopted another name, Ricardo Klement. He kept his head down and lived quietly within a small community of Nazi sympathizers.

It wasn’t enough to protect him from justice; he was arrested by Israeli agents and put on trial ten years after arriving in Buenos Aires. Investigators and historians descended upon his life, digging for all they could find. All they could find was that he had lived peacefully, trying to draw as little attention as possible. He appeared to have given up his old life.

In some ways, it was true. What few people knew, however, was that Eichmann was a friend of the von Strucker family, and when one of them contacted Eichmann and said they needed help getting some friends out of the country, Eichmann had agreed to help them. He never left any records of doing so, and neither did the von Struckers. The only people who knew of his deed were the people he’d helped.

To them, he became a martyr, one that Buenos Aires had failed to protect from outsiders who had callously captured him. Worse, the outsiders had been Israelis.

In time, the people he’d originally helped passed away and gave rise to a new generation. They never forgot what Eichmann had done for their forebears, and they were determined to remember him when no one else would. 

Almost fifty-nine years after Eichmann’s capture, they were ready to make their move. And as a testament to Buenos Aires, they knew just where to do it.

A man sat on a park bench along the border of the Bosques de Palermo, the street a constant hum of activity behind him with its eateries and shops. He kept his arms stretched to take up as much of the bench as he could so no one would sit beside him. The night was warm enough that he wore only a light jacket, though most of the people around him went without. Speaking of people, the park was crowded with them- tourists and couples and teenagers and people dressed in sweat-drenched exercise clothes and were, oddly enough, on a first-name basis with the ice cream salesman nearby.

He himself wasn’t athletic. He was in his late fifties with thick gray hair slicked back in a style that said he had done his best. His clothes were similar to those of an uneducated tourist - a Hawaiian shirt and khakis, but a sharp-eyed watcher might notice that the shirt and khakis were both rumpled and worn, and the cut of khakis hadn’t been popular for nearly ten years. He had a large midriff. Judging by how he sometimes squinted to look at things around the park, he was in desperate need of glasses. There was also a bee pin on his collar, over half an inch round, with big yellow and black stripes and tiny wings.

He looked over the park and whistled the tune from James Bond.

“Stop _doing_ that,” someone hissed over the comm.

“Yeah, Gary. I hate to say it, but you’re not a good whistler.”

Gary shifted on the park bench and grumbled. Nearby was a thick copse hiding a manhole from the street and park sidewalks. In the growing darkness, it was difficult to see what he knew to be true - the manhole was open. And since the two people currently down inside the manhole weren’t able to catch him in the act, he made a face at the manhole. After several seconds, he started humming the tune instead.

“Damn it, Gary!”

This time he looked around, trying to look unsuspicious, and when he was sure the coast was clear, he flipped off the manhole. He immediately felt guilty and turned away as he concentrated on looking inconspicuous.

“Connect it here?” one of the voices asked.

“Only if you want to freaking electrify us to death.”

“Don’t be stupid, it can’t do that.”

“Just _connect it right._ ”

“ _Fine._ ” There was mumbling, and then the sound of something clicking. Another series of clicks, each one a different tone, and then the whining sound of a fan and a series of chimes like a computer going on.

“Gary. Let us know if it works.”

Gary straightened on the bench. The lights in the park flickered, then went out. The lights in the surrounding blocks turned dark, too. The streetlights went dim, and the air was suddenly filled with the sound of panicked honking and squealing brakes. Gary turned behind him to watch the skyscrapers downtown, smiling giddily as their lights went out. “It’s working up here. Is it working down there?”

There was only silence from the other end, and then, finally, a barely audible, fascinated, “It’s beautiful.”

Gary made a face and mimicked them silently. It wasn’t as if _he_ got to see it. A momentous occasion, and he wasn’t going to be included. No, he was just the lookout. He was going to get left out of all of the stories about this, just like Michael Collins and Apollo 11. “It’s safe to come out now,” he said, unable to completely hide his bitterness.

He waited impatiently, and at long last the cover of the manhole rose. Two men came out one after the other, both of them dressed similarly to Gary, though where he had loafers, they wore sneakers, and they had opted for tradition button-down shirts instead of a Hawaiian one. Each of them wore a button with a bee on it, similar to Gary’s, and each one held flashlights. Despite the differences, their closed still had a worn and faded, second-hand quality. The one who appeared younger had a backpack reminiscent of the 1990s slung over his shoulder.

As soon as he spotted them, Gary hurried over. “Can I see?” Gary asked, unwilling to wait any longer.

The two men glanced at each other, and then one with the backpack looked around and unzipped it the slightest bit; a glowing blue light emanated from the opening.

Gary leaned forward to get a better look. His jaw dropped. “It’s... We did it. We _did_ it!”

“Geez, Gary. You want everybody to hear you? Shut up!” He zipped up the bag again and looked around to make sure no one had heard. “Let’s go.”

* * *

“Good evening, Mr. Rand,” the doorman said, opening the door for them. He was an older man, with gray just touching the roots of his dark brown hair. His skin was freshly-shaved but rough enough that Sharon knew it was a challenge for him. His uniform, consisting of an understated black suit and tie, was impeccable. He held himself like someone with military training, as if he could fight someone in his sleep with no warning.

“Thanks, Harry.” Danny gave the man a wave, and Sharon, silent like the others, followed Danny through the door to the skyscraper, a little surprised that Danny and Harry were on a first-name basis. Danny was wearing nice clothes, sure, but he seemed too down-to-earth to live in a silver-and-glass shard that competed with the most upscale skyscrapers in New York. 

She sneaked a glance at Harry as the motley and dirtied crew, two of them with bits of trash still stuck to them, shuffled past him, and either Harry was trained not to reveal his thoughts, or he was used to this sort of thing. Sharon rather envied him. She hadn’t expected to be in this situation; she’d certainly never been in a situation like it before. But Claire had refused to leave her, which meant her friend Luke refused to leave her, which in turn had led Jessica, Danny, and Colleen to insist they come with her. In her defense, Jessica’s insistence, even participation, was somewhat grudging. Secretly, Sharon appreciated the thought that _someone_ in the group was so willing to cut her loose.

Sharon had been swept up with them, partly to get away from the scene before the cops arrived, and partly because she knew how rare it was to find people willing to run toward trouble. Such people could be found in ever disaster, and yet there never seemed to be enough people like them.

The longer they had walked, though, the more she grew curious about the dynamics of the group. They obviously all knew each other, but they didn’t seem close. Colleen and Danny were close, Claire and Luke were close, but Danny was the only one who genuinely seemed excited to see the others. None of them matched his enthusiasm - Luke and Jessica seemed the least enthusiastic of all. Luke either talked quietly to Claire or not at all, and Jessica seemed to prefer no talking at all. Eventually, Danny realized that even his good cheer could only do so much, and he, too, lapsed into silence or quietly talking to Colleen.

She felt a little like a sixth wheel, and she vaguely wished she could watch them from across the street rather than from within their ranks.

In the elevator, Danny pushed the button for the penthouse in pointed silence, seemingly irritated that the others weren’t as happy to see him as he was to see them, and Sharon risked breaking the silence.

“So... you didn’t mention you were Danny _Rand._ ”

Danny shrugged. “I’m only Danny Rand at work. Everywhere else, I’m just Danny.”

That sounded like something an insanely wealthy and famous person would say. But all she said in response was, “Huh.” 

“Yeah,” Jessica said, either agreeing or not caring; it was difficult to tell. “Danny. Liquor cabinet?”

“Stocked.” His features brightened; he was evidently pleased that she was talking to him. “But I still think you should cut back. Maybe try-”

Jessica’s eyes narrowed. “If you say ‘focusing your chi’ or ‘finding your zen,’ I swear to God.”

Danny’s face fell, and he turned back to the elevator doors as if sulking.

“They really are friends,” Claire told Sharon.

Sharon shrugged; she’d seen far more antagonistic relationships. “It’s all good. When I try to show my friends I care, I do it by punching them,” Sharon said cheerfully. She grinned and gently punched her palm as she looked around to see if anyone else thought it was amusing. No one else so much as tried to smile, and her grin fell.

The elevator doors opened, and Sharon moved with the others into the room. To say it was large was an understatement. It stretched up three floors, with the outer walls ahead of the elevator entirely made of glass. She could see stairs wrap around outside to balconies on each of the other floors. The room stretched onward - she wasn’t sure of the exact measurements, but it was definitely larger than the Project Insight launch room. The only furniture, located all the way on the other side of the room, were two white couches sitting kitty-corner to each other, with one couch facing two large, white chairs, and the other couch facing one of the largest televisions Sharon had seen; in the middle of the couches, chairs, and television was a pristine glass table. To the right of the elevator, a metal and glass staircase gracefully twisted its way upward; to the left was another elevator. Everything was so clean and bright that even the couches and chairs seemed to glow.

Sharon looked down at herself, at the unidentifiable bits and pieces that were still stuck to her from the dumpster. If not for Danny’s wealth, she’d be surprised the doorman had let her in the building at all. Now she knew he was rich enough that the doorman had let her in even when she looked like she did - Danny might have more money than Tony Stark.

Claire stood next to her, and together, they looked at their clothes, and then at each other’s clothes. Colleen stepped in front of them and made a face. “I can get you a change of clothes,” she offered

Sharon shifted. “I shouldn’t stay.” Sticking with them had been the best exit strategy, and she had enjoyed watching their dynamics. And sue her, she’d been curious about them. But now she wanted to go, to move, to take notes, report to Fury, maybe text some of the Avengers. 

She was also vaguely aware of another reason she wanted to leave - she’d been on the run for so long that even this felt like it was too much of a connection. As much as she enjoyed the idea of spending time with people, the reality of it was far too dangerous. She had left behind a life of friends and family. She also suspected that the longer she stayed with them, the greater the risk for them. The doorman downstairs could betray her, any of these people could betray her – with or without meaning to. Leaving before things got worse was by far the wisest option. She wasn’t even sure why they had insisted she come with them. Nobody cared about her, but she was still a fugitive. 

“I was hoping we could talk,” Claire said. “About you.” Claire must have interpreted Sharon’s expression as one of alarm, because she quickly lifted her hands. “It’s okay. You’re safe. I promise.”

Sharon’s eyes narrowed. Given how they had met, the idea that she would be under physical threat in a billionaire’s apartment seemed ludicrous.

“Besides,” Colleen offered, “you probably shouldn’t go out on the street looking like that.”

Sharon’s lips pressed together. Colleen had a point.

Claire rightly saw that they had won. “Come on,” she said, nodding toward a hallway.

Sharon followed, and despite their assurances, she was tense. She knew she had to leave, and soon. She took a breath. As soon as she cleaned up, she promised herself. 

Behind her, the cautious conversation between Danny and Luke continued without change. From what she could tell, they weren’t speaking in code. The awkwardness of the exchange seemed to be borne of strain of unfamiliarity. She shoved down her curiosity. The important thing was that it had nothing to do with her.

Claire led her into a large half-bathroom and turned on the hot water. She handed Sharon a towel.

Sharon hesitated before she took it. “Are you the mother hen of the group?” Sharon teased.

“Worse. I’m a nurse. Used to be a nurse.” Claire wet her towel and started scrubbing her skin and hair under the sink. “But I still end up cleaning up after them. Just... no superpowers.” She glanced at Sharon. “So... what can you do?”

Sharon dropped her knapsack on the floor and stuck a corner of her towel under the tap. Despite herself, she checked the mirror’s reflection for a shower. It would be luxurious, she thought. With high water pressure and unlimited hot water. The shower head would have a variety of settings, and she could choose the massage setting and just stand there. Not that she would. She wouldn’t shower here, especially since she wasn’t sure she could trust them.

There was no shower reflected at her, only some piece of art that looked original and expensive. She tried not to feel disappointed. “Um. Do?”

“Super strength? Bulletproof? Magic energy fist?” She paused. “You’re not blind, are you?”

Sharon stared at her, confusion written all over her face. Why would Claire even ask her that?

More doubtful now, Claire asked, “Move things with your brain?”

Sharon continued to stare, her brows drawing together in confusion. Was Claire honestly asking if she were like Wanda? There was only one Wanda, though, and Sharon looked nothing like her.

“Ooooookay,” Claire said slowly. “Um. You’ve got something that might be dead stuck to your back, by the way.”

The two took turns at the sink and picking garbage off each other until Colleen showed up again, carrying two plain T-shirts and some yoga pants.

When Sharon pulled off her jacket and shirt, the other two stopped to stare. She kicked off her boots and jeans, silently amusing herself with how they might take her nearly-revealed outfit. Underneath the shirt and jeans, she wore a piece of clothing that was a mesh of cloth and metal, tailored to her form. The sleeves went all the way to her wrists, with a bit of extra lenth and loops she could put her fingers through if she wanted to cover her knuckles; the legs to right below her ankles. A low-hanging zipper in the front and a large collar helped her disguise the outfit under her clothes while also protecting her chest and neck if she needed to. It was obviously not store-bought, and it was difficult to tell, but the material could be manipulated to be hidden beneath different kinds of outfits. The suit was currently a light gray color that seemed almost white under the bathroom lights’ bright glare.

“That’s...” Colleen spoke carefully, her eyes narrowed as she sought the right words.

“A onesie?”

Sharon made a face at Claire and took one of the T-shirts from Colleen. “I saw it on a late night commercial and simply had to have it. You know how it goes.”

Neither of them looked like they believed her, but neither seemed like they were going to press her about it, either.

They exchanged a look with each other, and Sharon watched them both without seeming to do so.

“I’ll go put these in the wash.” Colleen picked up their discarded clothes, glanced at each of them again - and Sharon didn’t miss how Colleen was sizing her up about whether she was a threat or not - and left. Sharon sighed. Now she had to decide if she wanted to leave her clothes behind. It wasn’t as if she had that many to begin with...

Sharon studied Claire as she secured her suit’s sleeves underneath the T-shirt so they didn’t show; Claire studied her right back. Sharon bent over to draw the leggings of her outfit up beneath the yoga pants.

“Time to rejoin the others?” Sharon hinted. And the slightest nod from Claire, she headed out of the bathroom. She glanced to the door, still trying to decide. She really _did_ need to go. Staying in one place for too long was dangerous. But Claire gently urged her forward, and she saw that the couch had been left empty for them. Danny Rand sat on the floor, his back to the couch arm. Luke propped himself up against the wall. Jessica sprawled in one of the chairs. They sat in silence, with Jessica avoiding Danny’s eyes, Luke avoiding Jessica’s, and Danny looking at everyone like a puppy wanting their attention.

Claire took a seat on the couch and looked at Sharon, waiting for her to do the same.

Sharon hesitated. 

“I said you were safe here,” Claire said again. “Besides, you have to wait for your laundry. When was the last time you ate?”

Ugh. They were definitely making it difficult for her to simply walk away. At least none of them seemed like they were a threat to her. Even when they had hurt people, it had been to help her. Her instincts told her they likely wouldn’t hurt her; it was her trust levels that she didn’t have faith in. She hadn’t been around people she’d trusted fully much in the past couple of months. Years.

She took the seat beside Claire and looked around. “I’m not really that hungry,” she said politely. She looked around, wanting the attention off of her. She wasn’t comfortable in the spotlight. “So... you guys are...”

“The Defenders,” Danny told her cheerfully.

Jessica rolled her eyes. “I still haven’t signed off on that.”

Danny grinned at her and then turned to look at Sharon as Colleen came back into the room. “So what can you do?”

Sharon stared at him, then looked at Claire. “Okay, what’s going on? Why do people keep asking me that?”

Luke reached for the remote and turned off the TV. “We heard you might have superpowers.”

Sharon gaped at him, then managed a weak laugh. “Seriously?”

Claire pointed at Jessica. “Super strength.” At Luke. “Bulletproof skin.” At Danny.

“The Immortal Iron Fist,” he supplied.

As Sharon looked at him in incomprehension, Jessica said, “His fist glows, and he punches things really hard.”

Claire nodded and pointed at Colleen. “Ninja, which is basically a superpower.” She ignored Colleen’s rolled eyes and pointed at herself. “Nurse. Formerly. So who and what are you?”

It wouldn’t do to talk about how she was former SHIELD or former CIA or current fugitive. SHIELD and the CIA didn’t tend to show up on lists of people’s favorite things. Most of the time, neither did being a fugitive. “Marie. Marie Fourcade,” Sharon said. “I’m... nothing, really. I’m just helping to track somebody down.”

“Why?” Jessica’s voice was sharp despite the alcohol.

Looking her over, Sharon saw that her eyes were sharp, too. “She was a SHIELD agent. Got outted by the infodump. I tracked her as far as the bar, but the people there weren’t exactly helpful.”

“You know I’ve seen your underwear, right?” Claire asked. She looked at Colleen as Sharon grimaced. Good thing she didn’t blush easily. “We both have. Like, is that your superhero uniform, and you just wear it under your clothes? That’s weird underwear.”

“Weird how?” Jessica asked. She looked at Sharon’s shirt as if trying to see through it.

Sharon looked between them all, flabberghasted, only to see that Luke was trying to look at anything but her, and Danny lstared at the table in front of him with his head bowed and eyebrows raised as if he had no clue how to handle this. He wasn’t the only one, she thought. She cleared her throat.

“Uh, it’s just a gift from a friend. Stupid promise-type thing.” She suppressed the urge to cross her legs. “But I’m not a superhero. I swear.”

After a couple seconds, Claire said, “So you didn’t beat some guy’s ass badly enough to land him in the ER.”

Sharon’s grin at the memory betrayed her. “That? Oh, yeah. But that wasn’t superpowers. The guy had a glass skull.”

“So you’re just like us,” Colleen said as she reappeared. Sharon was willing to bet money Colleen had been listening in just out of sight. Glancing at Luke as she settled on the armrest of a chair, she amended, “Well, like _some_ of us.”

“I guess?” Sharon said. She wasn’t as convinced as they were that Luke was bulletproof – she’d never even _heard_ of anyone being bulletproof before. And she sure as hell had never heard of an an Immortal Iron Fist. They seemed to believe it, though, and she had to remind herself that they didn’t seem to be a threat to her. Maybe they were like those cosplayers who had been outside Stark Tower, only they were taking things to a whole new level. They seemed weird, but not in a bad way. 

Put that way, _was_ she like them?

Jessica leaned forward. “Why are you looking for a SHIELD agent? Why isn’t somebody else doing it? Another agency? Somebody with SHIELD? Or even those dorks in the spandex.”

Sharon shook off the urge to defend the dorks in spandex and shrugged. “If they could have, I’m sure they would have by now. Her mom just wants to know what happened to her, maybe have something to bury.” She pulled the photo from her bag and handed it to Claire, who studied it and handed it to Jessica. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen her around? Stefanie Jimenez. It probably would have been years ago.”

Jessica looked at the photo for several seconds. “This you?” she asked, pointing to the blonde.

Sharon shrugged again. She didn’t get the impression lying would go over well with this group. They might be unhinged, but Jessica’s eyes were sharp. She looked at Jessica anew as a thought occurred to her. “You sound like a cop.”

The rest of them broke into various levels of laughter. Jessica glared at her. “A PI.”

“So... You know people I could talk to,” Sharon said slowly. She didn’t want to bring in outsiders, but finding Jimenez was important. “I don’t know. But you could point me in the right direction or something, right?”

Jessica’s eyes lingered on the photo. “You know she’s dead and you’re still looking for her?” Her eyes moved to Sharon’s face. “She might have been Hydra.”

It took all of Sharon’s self-control not to react. As soon as she could speak without her voice revealing her anger, she said, “No, her mom’s sure she isn’t Hydra.”

“And no mom’s ever thought better of their kid than the kid deserved.” Jessica watched her a couple more seconds and passed the photo to Colleen. “Okay, yeah. I’ll help. But you tell me everything you know. I think you’re lying, I break you. Clear?”

Sharon grinned, thinking about how she had sparred with the Dora Milaje and Black Widow and still sometimes sparred with Nakia when they both had the time. She’d known too many dangerous women for Jessica to concern her too much. “Sure.”

“In the meantime,” Danny said, “you can stay here if you want. There’s obviously space. And I’m a way nicer host than Jessica is.”

Jessica glared at him.

Danny turned the television back on. Without looking at Jessica, he said, “What? It’s true.”

* * *

The two of them sat in front of Pepper’s desk. As always, the office was clean and orderly. It looked like it had been made to be featured in magazines, which, Tony supposed, it had been. He knew it had been featured in a couple, and he loved that Pepper was seeing success on so many fronts.

What he didn’t love was the piece of spinning art on her desk, the constant movement distracting him from the light chatter he and Rhodey kept up as they silently tried to determine who would ask Pepper for her help. He’d gotten rid of her last one, but now here was another one. He glowered at it, already plotting its demise.

“-love what you’ve done with the place,” Rhodey was saying, his foot kicking Tony’s chair. Tony barely noticed, his focus drawn instead by the _spin spin spin_ of the blasted thing on the desk.

“Thank you.” Tony didn’t have to pay attention to know that tone - she knew they were up to something and was waiting for them to get to it. But _spin spin spin_ it was hard to _spin spin spin_ decide how to _spin spin spin_ come cleaning when _spin spin spin._

Tony looked at her over the spinning arms, then bobbed his head to try to look at her _around_ them instead. “You got another one? Seriously?”

Pepper leaned back in her chair, her eyes drifting toward the spinning arms. “I heard you were coming up.”

Tony sighed. “I love you.”

Rhodey gaped at him; Tony could feel it. But he was too busy looking at Pepper’s lopsided, thin grin.

“So do you two want to get to the point? What do you want?”

“Why can’t it be just to see you?” Tony asked. He didn’t like the gentle accusation that he’d only come into her office because he wanted something - especially since it was true.

Rhodey smacked him in the arm. “We need a safety deposit box.”

Pepper frowned. She leaned toward them, her elbows on the desk. Instinctively, Tony leaned forward, too. “That shouldn’t be a problem. Even you could show him how to do it, Rho-”

“A specific one,” Rhodey said quickly. He looked to Tony. “We’ve got the key. We just need the box.”

Now the frown extended to a crease between her eyebrows, and she straightened. “Explain.”

“Tony’s checking up on this kid he used to babysit-”

Tony stared at Rhodey, his expression one of utter betrayal. He held up a finger to Pepper. “Okay, no. You know me.”

“I do. So who’s this kid you never babysat?”

Tony’s expression turned smug as he grinned at Rhodey. “It’s about General Ross.” Pepper tensed; he didn’t blame her. Ross made him feel tense, too. “He’s convinced that Steve and the others are getting help from Sharon Carter. She’s Margaret Carter’s great-niece, and since Carter and my dad used to work together, he thought I might know something.”

Pepper’s eyes narrowed. “And he gave you the key?”

Tony and Rhodey simultaneously froze and, without moving their heads, glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes.

“Oh, no,” Pepper said. “Tony, what did you do?”

“We tracked her down.”

“Her safehouse down,” Rhodey corrected.

“She wasn’t there,” Tony continued.

“He made me reach into places no one should have to reach.”

“We found the key.”

“And now we want to know what it goes to.”

Pepper looked from one to the other and back again. “Why?”

Tony and Rhodey looked at each other, then at Pepper. “To find her,” Rhodey said slowly.

“Before Ross does,” Tony said, speaking more quickly.

Pepper raised her eyebrows. “You couldn’t have left a note?”

“For Ross to find if he finds her safehouse?” Tony shook his head. “No. He can’t know we’re involved.”

“Are we involved?” Pepper asked, starting to grow alarmed. “Why are we involved? Tony, if people find out you’re trying to protect someone who’s helping Steve-”

“She’s a kid, Pep. Well, she was when I knew her.” He hesitated. “She fought Bucky with me at the JTTF. And.” He fidgeted, ending up with his foot on his opposite knee, his hands rapping along the shin. “Carter and Dad got along, apparently. So that makes her some weird sort of pseudo-family, right?”

Pepper stared at him. She was always still when she was thinking hard. At length, she moved, lowering her head. “All right. Fine.”

Tony hid his relief with another smug grin at Rhodey. 

“Give me the key,” Pepper directed. Tony hurried to comply. “And don’t tell _anyone_ about this. And don’t do anything without telling me. If you’re going under Ross’s nose, that means you’re going against the United State government. Do you understand that, Tony?”

Tony stilled in his seat. She was worried, and she was right to be. And these were the two people he trusted and loved most in the world. He could put on airs with everyone else, keep up a facade with anyone else, but with them, he could be honest.

“I don’t like how things ended, Pep.” His voice was soft, quiet. “I never wanted them to wind up on the Raft. I don’t want that to happen to someone who was never an Avenger and just got caught up in the Accords. I don’t want her to suffer because Steve and I couldn’t get our act together.”

Pepper softened. “Okay.” She turned her attention to the key. “Okay,” she said again, and Tony could tell she was gearing up to get the job done. “Tell me everything.”


	6. Marie-Madeleine Fourcade ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The investigation into Stefanie Jimenez's location continues, but Sharon and her new allies aren't the only ones who have found a lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LONG. OVERDUE. I apologize. Jessica Jones S2 changed the dynamics a lot, and then I had to edit some stuff based on Luke Cage. And then, of course, real life. I'll try to do better from here on out and have the next chapter up by the thirteenth at the latest (get it?). More music in this one!
> 
> Songs:  
> Marvelettes, "The Hunter Gets Captured By the Game"  
> Animal Collective, "Summertime Clothes"  
> Gregory Isaacs, "Night Nurse"

([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBa746RVNHA))

Conversation soon lapsed as most of the group opted to watch quietly. Sharon, her eyes shifting to some of them, noticed the looks some of them trading, or the stiffness of their necks as they tried not to look at others.

She had to keep her glances surreptitious, though, because Jessica rarely looked away from her. Jessica was also the only one who spoke, abruptly asking Sharon questions about Stefanie, about how close Sharon was with Stefanie’s family, how she and Stefanie had met. There was an edge to the questions that told her Jessica wasn’t asking after a sense of curiosity.

When Jessica suggested going back to Shots Bar, Sharon almost felt a sense of relief. The atmosphere was tense, to say the least, and she wanted to be out there, working, not sitting around watching a home redecoration show. Why would Danny even put something like this on?

She agreed and hopped to her feet, only to find that no one else followed suit. She looked around and caught the tail-end of a glance between Luke and Jessica. She didn’t bother to hide her interest as Jessica got to her feet.

“Let’s go,” Jessica said.

“No one else is…?” Sharon left the sentence open, waiting for someone else to get up. Danny waved her off as Luke half-shook his head. Claire curled up beside him, and Colleen checked in on Claire before settling down herself.

“Let’s go,” Jessica repeated. She radiated impatience, and Sharon wasn’t sure if it was impatience or distaste that furrowed Jessica’s brow.

The two caught the subway to Harlem, silent as they studied each other and the other passengers. Sharon didn’t see anyone to make her feel alarmed, though her she was more curious about Jessica than ever. As the subway rocked and Sharon tried to ignore the scents of urine, oil, and air freshener, she turned to Jessica. “So, um. How are we going to ask them questions, anyway? I don’t get the impression they’d be super-glad to see us? Or at least, not me.”

Jessica eyed her for several seconds. “We’ll work something out when we get there,” she said at last.

Sharon affected a vacuous, cheerful expression and wondered if she was playing Marie as too dumb. The Defenders – for lack of a better name – had, after all, seen part of her earlier run-in with the morons at Shots Bar. Still, she thought she’d done an admirable job of playing the role.

There was just something weird about Jessica…

They got off at the station on 125th Street Station. Even this late at night, there were people around, and the two silently moved around them. Sharon took a deep breath and sighed. “I love New York,” she announced.

Jessica made a face. “Something is wrong with you.”

Sharon smiled but didn’t contradict her. In her pleasure to be working again, she practically skipped down the stairs as Jessica followed at a more grudging place.

As soon as they hit the street, Jessica asked, “And you said you knew her for how long?”

“Since college. We met sophomore year, so… twelve years?” She made a mental note to remember the addition as Jessica watched her suspiciously. Sharon smiled blithely back.

Sharon caught a whiff of soot when they were a block away from the bar. She frowned to herself. It was too acrid for barbecue.

“Shit,” Jessica muttered.

Sharon followed her eyeline and saw the blue lights reflecting off the buildings ahead of them, coming from the street where Shots Bar was located.

Instead of turning down the street immediately, where they could walk straight up to Shots Bar, Jessica strode across the street before turning. Sharon, after reminding herself that she was playing Marie, followed. It didn’t escape her notice that Jessica was eyeing the face of everyone around them; she was doing the same.

The two stopped scross the street from Shots Bar, mingling with the crowd.

What had once been a dive that held a certain charm for its tasteless clientele was now a shadow of itself. Shattered glass decorated the sidewalk, glittering under the blue lights from police cars lining the street. What was left of the walls were black and charred, crumbling at the slightest touch. Investigators went in and out. The air was heavy with the sharp, clinging scent of smoke that stuck in her throat.

“Questioning them is going to be harder than I thought,” Sharon said as she and Jessica surveyed the scene from behind the yellow crime scene tape. Given the damage to the outside of the building, Sharon suspected the inside of the building wasn’t worth salvaging. Not that it had been worth salvaging when it was only a dive bar, she thought wryly. Given New York real estate, she suspected the place would be paved over within a week. Good riddance.

Scanning the crowd, she saw the young boys from before. She pretended she didn’t. At least she now had a theory for how the fire had started. She didn’t see anyone who looked like a patron – or former patron – of the bar. She furtively checked the windows of the surrounding buildings to see if they were watching from somewhere above, but she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary there, either. Her brow furrowed. It was natural for them to be hands on about this. They’d want revenge on whoever torched their place. Why weren’t they here?

“Guess people figured out who shot up the hotel last night.” Without warning, Jessica ducked under the tape, and after a second’s hesitation, Sharon fell into step behind her. Whereas Jessica walked as if she didn’t care what anyone thought and would happily mess someone up if they tried to stop her, Sharon walked as if she belonged. It was a trick she had learned from her SHIELD training – act as if you belong, and an alarming number of people will simply accept that you belong there. And yes, it had shown up on an episode of _Doctor Who,_ too. But it _worked._

Sharon soon found herself facing a shorter woman with golden chestnut skin and black curls in a loose and free afro. She wore a black blazer, a red shirt, jeans, and an observant expression that proclaimed that, despite her relaxed manner of dress, she knew what she was doing. Her businesslike demeanor shifted to something even less pleasant when she saw Jessica making a beeline for her.

Jessica came to a sudden stop in front of her. “What happened?”

“Nice to see you, too,” the woman said, voice dry. “Mind telling me what you’re doing at a closed crime scene?” She twisted to look around Jessica. “You _did_ see the tape there, right?”

“Yeah,” Jessica said. “It was in my way. What happened?”

The woman looked at Sharon. “Detective Misty Knight. And you are?”

“Marie Fourcade. Would it make a difference in our staying here if I said I was here last night?”

The detective’s eyes slid toward Jessica before zeroing in on Sharon again with laser focus. While Knight’s gaze was off of her, Sharon noticed that one of the blazer’s sleeves was empty. “Were you with her?” There was a faint emphasis on the last word.

Sharon raised an eyebrow. Knight already seemed to consider her a suspect, and they’d only just arrived on the scene. What sort of person _was_ Jessica? “Why would that make a difference?”

“Because I’m such a people person,” Jessica said. “Why are you even here? Aren’t you supposed to be benched?”

Knight’s lips thinned as she took a deep breath through her nose. Her empty sleeve shook as her shoulder moved. “I’m just keeping an eye on things. This one’s going to be tricky.”

“How so?” Jessica pressed.

Judging by Knight’s expression as she eyed Jessica, Sharon suspected Knight was already familiar with how relentless Jessica’s questions could be.

Sharon opened her mouth to speak and instantly felt Jessica’s eyes on her. Internally, Sharon frowned to herself, but outwardly, she kept her attention on Knight. “Do you not trust the cops here?” she asked, her tone innocent, even naive.

Jessica’s eyes narrowed, and Sharon pretended not to notice.

Knight, however, was openly sizing Sharon up. “You said you were here last night.”

She nodded. “Without Jessica,” she clarified. After a moment, she added, “I know who was there, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“About this?” Sharon nodded to the burned-out shell. She shrugged, looking doubtful. She didn’t want to give a sure answer that she’d have to take back later if she needed something from Knight.

Jessica answered instead. “Luke.”

Knight closed her eyes and gave a long-suffering sigh. “I already know Luke was here. They got him trending on twitter when he left the bar. That doesn’t tell me why he was here. Or why you’re here now. Or who she is.” Her shoulder with the empty sleeve twitched toward Sharon, and she nodded her head at Sharon as if to say she didn’t mean offense. “What the hell happened?”

“The usual,” Jessica said, evasive. “Hey. Have you seen this woman?”

Sharon pulled out Stefanie’s photo and held it up for Knight’s inspection.

Knight leaned forward to look, the empty sleeve dangling. “Can’t say I have. Who is she?”

“Stefanie Jimenez. I knew her years ago. She joined SHIELD, disappeared after the infodump. Her mom asked me to see if I could find her. I know she was at this bar before she disappeared – it’s why I was here last night - but the people inside said they didn’t know anything about her.”

“Yeah,” Knight said, rolling her eyes. “They don’t tend to know anything about anything. Weird how that works.” She turned to the remains of the building. “You got any leads other than the bar?”

“Just the people in it.” At Knight’s dubious expression, she said, “I know it’s unlikely. The dump was years ago. Her mom knows it’s unlikely, too. She just got a cancer diagnosis, and she wants to bury her, or at least know what happened, before she goes.”

Knight’s expression softened. “I’ll keep an eye out.” To Jessica, she said, “So that’s what you’re doing here?”

Jessica shrugged, and Knight’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Mmm. You tell Luke to keep his head down on this one. These people are connected. And they don’t care about collateral damage. Doesn’t help that Luke’s well-known around here. I’ll do what I can to throw them off.” She took a couple steps away, then stopped and pointed at the crime scene tape. “And get on the other side of the rope,” she said sternly.

“Yep.” Jessica’s tone was noncommittal. “On it.” She didn’t move, and Knight, after surveying the other officers as they worked, sighed and pretended she didn’t see as she moved away. So Knight didn’t particularly like Jessica, Sharon thought, but she also didn’t distrust her. Huh.

Jessica was either oblivious to Knight’s reaction, accustomed to it, or pretending not to notice. “Okay.” She waved at the remains of the bar. “So this is a dud.”

Various law enforcement agents moved around them like they were rocks in a rushing stream. No one seemed to pay them any attention other than Knight, who occasionally turned to check if they were still there.

Sharon chewed her lower lip as she considered, slowly turning around to face the hotel. “Maybe not,” she said. “Somebody in there might remember her, or know which way Stefanie went. Even that would help.”

Jessica nodded, indicating that Sharon should lead.

Across the street, a beaten, store-bought sign hung on the door: “CLOSED. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.” A penis was drawn crudely in the corner.

Sharon gave the door a tug. Locked. She sighed, trying to figure out a way to pick the lock with Jessica and a watchful Knight around. Would it even be worth it? She didn’t even know if anyone was in the building. She’d have to look into it more later. “Guess they don’t want a bunch of prostitutes doing business across the street from an active crime scene.” She turned to face Jessica. “Okay. Yeah. This is a dud.”

* * *

([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxhaRgJUMl8&index=2&list=RDEM9gvq9R2t7-uOupKf8_N8Cg))

Roughly twelve of them had regrouped after the fire. The bar they huddled in was one of the modern travesties they hated. It was clean, lit with Edison lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling, and had seating areas with plush chairs and homey coffee tables. It was the sort of place where twenty-somethings spent their parents’ hard-earned money while out wearing tight jeans and lumberjack-style shirts despite never having done a hard day’s work in their lives, not like the patrons of Shots Bar. There was no working jukebox here, only invisible speakers that played jaunty music from the past five years. The glasses were clean, and though there was no window to show the creeping daylight outside, they all knew that if there had been a window here, it, too, would be clean. Instinctively, the regular patrons of the bar gave the group a wide berth, and the group, happy to have the space, would have been happier to have more. They were all tired, in a foreign place, uncomfortable, grouchy, and several of them sported injuries. Unfortunately, they beer prices were as inexplicably overpriced as most of the bar’s regulars’ clothes, with the result that most of them were sober. It didn’t help their moods at all.

“This blows,” Al groused. “They blew up our bar, man.” He played with the condensation on his ice water.

“They didn’t blow it up. Technically, they just set fire to it,” Derek said. He sank into his seat, missing Shots but also enjoying the padded chairs. Not that he would ever say so aloud.

“Technically? It’s was a Molotov cocktail! That’s an explosive, you prick!”

“Regular damn Peanuts gallery,” Jeff muttered to himself. He glared at them. “‘Sides, it was _my_ bar. That was _my_ business. Those animals burned me out of of _my_ business, _my_ livelihood. There’s no technicalities about this. We know who did it. We hit them back. Tonight.”

His younger counterpart, still unnamed aloud by any of them, shook his head. “We don’t have the numbers. And it’s likely they’ll be ready. They’ll be expecting us to attack them.” He set a coaster on the table. “This is our strength - we choose who our victims are, and we choose when to hit them. Nobody else knows where we’ll be, who we’ll hit, or how hard. _This,_ ” he said, tapping the coaster, “is our target. The one who poses the greatest threat right now.”

“The black guy,” one of the men in the crowd said. “I swear to God, bullets didn’t even hurt him. Like that guy they were talking about? The one Byrd said was made-up. We’ve gotta go after that guy.”

“No, you moron,” Derek snapped, “we’ve gotta go after the bitch! The super-strength chick.” He rubbed his cheek, flinching as he rubbed too hard.

The man with the coaster exhaled, and everyone went silent. It was the sort of silence that fell in a forest when animals sensed a predator nearby. Even Jeff waited to see what he would say next. After several moments, the man spoke, his tone calm. Genial. “That guy came looking for the bitch. So we find her first. And she either leads us to him or we find him on our own. Everyone clear on that? She took Derek out. She was watching us from the hotel. She’s targeting us. Which means we take her out before she makes anymore trouble.”

Around him, the men slowly nodded.

“Okay,” the man, continued. “She’ll be looking for us, so the plan is to go to our usual hangout spots. You see her, you call the rest of us, and when there are enough of us, we jump her. We team up on her, any super strength she might have won’t matter. Got it?”

This time, the men nodded with more enthusiasm.

He leaned back, and the silence stretched as the men continued to look at him.

He stared back at them. He inhaled as if to sigh again, but instead shooed them toward the door impatiently. “Then _go._ ”

* * *

“Hey! _Hey!_ ”

Claire and Luke stopped, having just left the coffee shop and cupping their drinks with their hands, looked behind them on the sidewalk. A young woman, maybe old enough to be in college, was running toward them, making eye contact with them, and they glanced at each other. She obviously wasn’t with the white supremacists from Shots Bar; her skin was too dark for that, though not as dark as Claire’s. Instead of being bald and clad in leather, she had dark brown hair tied into a relaxed ponytail, and she wore skinny jeans, old Converse, and a T-shirt underneath a thick, oversized jacket. As thin as she was, she moved like she’d happily fight anyone on the street who gave her trouble and then go about her day as if nothing had happened.

She stopped in front of them and bent over, gasping for breath. “I _thought_ it was you,” she declared victoriously. She looked at Luke as if faintly star struck, though she didn’t seem so happy when she looked at Claire seconds later. “You looking for Elena?” She bowed her head as she tried to catch her breath.

“Elena?” Claire glanced at Luke.

“We’re looking for Stefanie Jimenez,” Luke explained.

The woman shook her head. “Elena said you’re looking for her.” Her phrases were punctuated by gasps. “With that blonde chick. She said she’d talk to the blonde chick, but only if you two are there.” She straightened but kept breathing heavily. “She said you saw her last night.” She pointed at Claire. “You chased her.”

Claire’s jaw slipped open as she realized who the woman was talking about. “Ohhhhhh.” She turned to Luke. “Her. I _did_ see her. She’s the one I chased into the alley.”

Luke didn’t take his eyes off of the woman. “She knows where Stefanie Jimenez is?”

The woman’s breathing temporarily steadied as she glared at Luke. Claire didn’t miss how her eyes lingered over Luke’s muscles. “I don’t know. I’m telling you what she said. So are you in or not?”

Claire and Luke looked at each other, then Claire nodded and took out her phone. “Gimme a minute.”

* * *

“You ready to pack it in?” Jessica asked as they hit the sidewalk. They moved aside to let people move into the bar - despite it being almost lunchtime, the bar was doing good business.

“Me?” Sharon asked, glad she’d taken a catnap at Danny’s after leaving Shots Bar hours before. Jessica had been pushing her to go almost as soon as dawn broke; Sharon wasn’t actually certain Jessica had gotten any sleep. “That’s the twelfth bar we’ve hit in two hours, and you’ve had a drink at each one. Are _you_ ready to pack it in?”

Jessica shrugged. “Super-strength.”

Sharon frowned at her. “Yeah, about that. When you say, ‘super-strength,’ what do you-”

Jessica’s phone rang with a bar from Gregory Isaacs’ “Night Nurse,” ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6oYyG0KcvQ)) and she held up a finger to Sharon as she punched the answer button. “Yeah?” After several seconds of listening, she said, “We’ll meet you there. Five minutes.” She hung up and pocketed her phone. “Looks like we might have a lead after all. Come on.”

* * *

“ _This_ is where the lead is?” Jessica asked. The store was one of the teeny-bopper set-ups that she never went near even in her youth. The music was loud and peppy, there were girls arguing with their moms to buy them something, there were cartoon characters on shirt fronts. In her younger years, before Kilgrave, this would have been Jessica’s idea of hell. And sure, the preteens arguing with their moms caused her eyes to linger longer than necessary, but despite wanting more time with her mom, she didn’t think she’d ever have done it this way.

Claire moved aside to reveal the girl they’d met before. “Jessica, meet Alex. She’s going to take us to Camila.”

Alex nodded gravely to Jessica, relaxing when she saw Sharon over Jessica’s shoulder. “Good. Now we can get started. Come on.” Taking out her phone, she started texting, leaving the others to acknowledge each other more or less askwardly and follow in her path.

“Any trouble?” Luke asked Jessica.

Jessica shook her head and glanced back at Sharon, who was walking behind them and quietly chatting with Claire. “None. Why? Expecting any?”

He looked at her curiously. “I meant from the guys at the bar. You think we’re going to have trouble from... other places?” He glanced back at Sharon.

Jessica shrugged. “I don’t have a lot of faith in people.”

He chuckled. “That’s one way to say it.” When Jessica didn’t indicate any amusement, his eyes widened. “You really think so?”

“I definitely think she isn’t telling us the whole truth.”

“Hm.”

Alex led them to up Bradhurst Avenue, only checking behind her to make sure they were still following when she paused to cross the street into Jackie Robinson Park. They walked along the perimeter of the park on Bradhurst, then took a walking trail into the park. At length, the bandshell came into sight, and Sharon and Claire both recognized the person sitting on the front of the stage. The girl was watching everyone and everything warily. Upon spotting them, she tensed and fidgeted with her phone. She waited until they walked over, and nodded to Sharon.

“Heard you made it out.”

“Looks like you did, too.”

“I heard you’re looking for some lady. The one that went to Shots Bar.”

Sharon stepped forward, every inch of her on the alert. “You know where she is?”

Elena shook her head. “Not now. But I got stuff.” She eyed Luke and Claire. As the silence drew to an uncomfortably long period, she shoved a notebook toward Luke. “Sign that and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

The others stared at her. “Uh,” Luke began. “Like... an autograph?”

“No!” Elena snapped, defensive and embarrassed.

Alex dug in her pockets. “You need a pen, dumbass.” She turned to Luke, not bothering to hide how she looked at his muscles beneath his shirt. “She needs a selfie, too. We both do.”

Luke’s eyes slid toward Claire, who smiled and held up her hands to show she’d had nothing to do with it.

“Shut up, Alex!” Elena found a pen in her backpack and handed it to Luke without making eye contact. Sharon’s eyes moved from the backpack to Elena’s face, remembering how the two had met and wondering how young Elena really was. The bag was decorated in sharpie ink and pins depicting rainbows and ice cream cones. “Just sign it. And I’ll tell you.”

“Okay.” Luke glanced at Sharon, obviously wondering if any of this was worth the embarrassment, and then sighed. After he signed it and started to hand it back, Elena shoved his arm toward Claire.

“Really?” Claire asked. As much as she wanted to appear practical and as if heroism and recogntion weren’t her thing, she was also obviously flattered.

Jessica glowered at Sharon, daring Sharon to mention her. If this was Defenders Autograph Day, Jessica evidently planned to set things on fire.

Once she had her autograph safely in her hands, Elena admired the signatures.

Alex loudly cleared her throat.

“Shut up,” Elena muttered. She shoved the notebag into her bag as carefully and as quickly as she could. “Uh, so. Here’s what I know. That lady went to that bar years ago. And she started hanging out in the hotel after.” She met Sharon’s eyes. “There was a sports game. My- A friend of mine. She was telling me about this guy she knows, right? He was Latvian and bitching because the women won some hockey thing and the guys didn’t, and he wanted to support his country but he didn’t want to watch women. That lady was still at the hotel, ‘cause she and my friend laughed about him after. But it was when those girls were kidnapped - you know, the ones in Africa? That was when my friend realized she hadn’t seen her in a while. And she was kind of worried, ‘cause she thought the lady’d stick around longer, but she didn’t.” Elena shrugged. “People do what they do, right? Not like you can take care of everybody.”

“How did you find this out? Were you there, or did you ask around?” Sharon asked, trying to keep her tone gentle and not like an agent’s.

Elena avoided making eye contact again. “My friend knew her. She saw her picture when you were showing it around, recognized her. She said she used a different name, though. I asked if she was gonna tell you what she knew, since you kind of helped me out or whatever. She said not to get mixed up in it, that it could mean bad shit.” She glanced at Sharon. “But I figured, you know...”

“You wanted his autograph,” Alex sang.

“ _Alexa._ ” Elena smacked her friend in the arm. “Shut up!”

Alex glowered at her. Calling her by “Alexa” was obviously something she didn’t appreciate.

“Hey,” Claire said with a warm smile. “I get it. He has that effect on people.”

The tension between the two relaxed, and Elena’s shoulders slumped. Sharon thought that Luke wasn’t the only one to have an effect on people.

Elena glanced at Sharon from beneath her lashes. “Does it help?”

“Definitely,” Sharon told her. “It tells me she didn’t get killed right after the infodump - there’s a chance she realized she was in the files and went underground in time. It means I might find her alive after all.”

“Infodump,” Alex echoed.

Elena’s eyes widened. “You mean she was with _SHIELD?_ ”

Sharon nodded. “That’s why she was staking out the bar across the street and using a different name.” Without moving her head, she checked the perimeter to make sure there was no one suspicious around. She’d kept an eye on their surroundings when they’d made their way over, but it never hurt to be paranoid these days. “The good news is that the people from Shots don’t have any reason to target you - they likely didn’t even see you. So it’s unlikely they’ll come after you for talking to me.”

“But they saw you,” Jessica pointed out.

Sharon grinned as humbly as possible; it wasn’t very humble. “Yeah.” She turned to Elena. “Is that everything you can remember? Or your friend can remember?”

“That’s all I know,” she said gravely. “And I don’t think my friend is going to say anything else.”

Sharon nodded. “Okay. Claire, just in case - _just in case_ \- anyone’s watching, could you give her my number?” Elena got out her notebook again, and Claire flipped to a blank page and wrote as Sharon dictated. Once she’d handed Elena the notebook back, Sharon said, “Elena. Don’t just use it if you remember anything else. If you need anything, if you want anything, if you feel threatened or don’t want to wind up in that hotel again, you tell me, okay?”

Elena’s jaw set. “I don’t need charity!”

Sharon bit her lip. “It’s not charity. It’s knowing people who won’t create a situation where you’re trapped with a neo-nazi with the guy’s drunk, neo-nazi friends across the street.”

Elena crossed her arms. “Like what?”

Sharon shrugged. “That depends.”

“On?”

“You. Think about it and tell me what you want. I’ll find a way to put the pieces in place to make it happen.”

Elena didn’t look like she believed her; Sharon didn’t blame her. She had her own doubts. It wasn’t as if Sharon had the power of SHIELD behind her anymore.

None of her concerns showed on her face, though. “It’s what I do,” Sharon assured her. “Now. If someone’s watching us right now, they’re watching because of me. So the two of us,” she glanced at Jessica, “are going to leave. And Luke and Claire are going to see to it that you get home safely, okay?”

“Whoa,” Alex breathed, staring at Luke. “Um. I’m... actually going home with Camila.”

Luke immediately looked away, and Claire grinned.

“It was a plural you,” Sharon said, with just a hint of amusement in her voice. “It would be irresponsible to make sure only Elena got home safely.”

“And if we’re going to be together that long,” Alex suggested, “maybe we can get some more autographs. And maybe some selfies.” Elena rolled her eyes and then kept them firmly on the ground.

Jessica nudged Claire with an elbow. “I bet his shirt would look good on one of you.”

Picking up on Jessica’s intent, Claire said, “We can swing by my place and get one for both of you.”

Both girls gaped, and Sharon took that as her cue to tug on Jessica’s arm. As she pulled Jessica away, Luke turned his face away from the girls and mouthed, “Evil.”

As they walked away, both of them heard Alex say in a high-pitched voice, “One that he’s _worn?_ ”

* * *

The man still sat at the table as if he owned the place. Every now and then, the waitress would come over. Something in his air caused her to instinctively be more respectful than usual, be more careful not to cause offense. He checked his phone often.

And then, after one message, he got up and threw some cash on the table. Without speaking to anyone, he left.

One of the best things about New York was that a person could be exactly as social as they wanted to be. They could be friendly and open if they wanted to be thought of as serial killers, or they could be total assholes if they wanted people to think they were normal. He went with “total asshole,” blending in perfect as he walked around and got lost in the crowd of the subway. No matter where he went, no one paid him any attention. They never had any reason to.

He got off the subway and headed down Saint Nicholas Place, glancing at his phone as he did so. He headed away from Jackie Robinson Park up West 150th.

Al fell into place beside him. “Put the word out. Everyone else is coming.”

“How many are on site?”

“Only ten of us. But Bill’s invited some people in. I called some people. Eddie called in some people, too. And Derek’s been telling anybody who’ll listen that she’s a menace who needs to be put down. We’re expecting up to forty.”

He looked almost impressed in spite of himself. “How soon can they get here?”

“Couple hours. Lawrence has his kid’s baseball game, and Dale’s still in his divorce hearing with his wife.”

The man nodded. “Good. Where is she?”

Al pointed down the street.

The man looked without moving his head and frowned. That was her, definitely. But she was with someone else, a woman with jet-black hair. They were both walking slowly down the street.

“I like the girl she’s with,” Al said cheerfully. “Looks kind of brittle, you know? Fragile.”

The man fixed Al with a withering stare. “Tell me what she’s been doing.”

Al hastily tried to switch gears. “Uh... Let’s see. So Mike saw them outside Snafu’s this afternoon. Said they were in and out of bars all day. I got here in time to see them with some people in the park back there.”

“Who?” he asked sharply.

Al shrugged. “I don’t know. Just some people. None of them were white, if that’s what you’re asking. One of them was the guy from last night.”

“Was one of them a black guy? Black trenchcoat?” He pointed at his eye. “Eye patch?”

Al shook his head. “No. Just the black guy with the yellow shirt. Buff guy.”

The man relaxed, but only slightly. “Find them. I want to know everything we can find out about them. If they’re agents, too - if they’re sending superpowered agents after us, we need to know.”

Al gave a slow nod. “Got it.”

The man stared at him.

Al startled. “Oh! You mean now.”

The man took a deep breath as Al hurried away. “I swear to God,” he said to no one in particular.

This being New York, everyone around him took care not to notice.


	7. Marie-Madeleine Fourcade iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The neo-Nazis go on the attack, but Sharon and her new allies are more than willing to handle it. 
> 
> Music:  
> Motley Crue, "Girls, Girls, Girls"

The four of them didn’t see anything unusual as they walked. Elena was quiet, and Alex kept up most of the talk, pointing out local landmarks and what had happened to whom there, everything from stoops to water fountains. Her stories included everything from budding relationships at that restaurant to muggings at that storefront, and she seemed completely unbothered that neither Luke nor Claire knew any of the people she talked about. As lunchtime neared, the sidewalk got more crowded, and the cacophony of traffice grew louder and more tumultuous. Claire kept a wary eye out, less relaxed than Luke, who strode peaceably along.

The organized chaos around them wasn’t so much that they didn’t notice a white man round the corner roughly twenty feet behind them, cell phone in hand. He was wheezing loudly, sweat pouring from his bald head. One look at the leather vest, and Claire and Luke shared a look of understanding. They knew where he’d come from, and they knew what he was after.

The man checked his phone, looked around the street, met Luke’s gaze, and quickly jumped back around the corner.

“Not exactly subtle, are they,” she mused.

Elena looked far more worried. “What if they recognize me? I mean, I went in and out of that hotel a lot… What if they remember me?”

Claire rested a hand on Elena’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. They don’t look that closely at people like us.” She looked at Luke. “And they tend to think the women are stupider and weaker. I’ll hang back. You get them out of sight. Let’s see what happens.”

Luke hesitated, but as he saw Claire’s hand on her purse, he nodded. He knew she could fight, he just had problems remembering that sometimes.

Claire pointed at the two girls. “Don’t steal his shirt off his back when I’m not around to see it,” she teased, making Elena look down at the ground, embarrassed. Alex looked at Luke anew and hummed. That girl, Claire thought as she shared a look with Luke, was going to be trouble. After a quick check to make sure the man wasn’t watching, she winked at Luke and hopped up the stairs into a nearby deli.

Luke nodded to the two girls, trying not to reveal how much he wanted to be elsewhere. They were good enough kids, but the way Alex kept looking at him made him uncomfortable. He couldn’t wait to be done with this, sitting on the couch again with Claire and watching Netflix. For now, he focused on keeping a respectful distance between them and gestured for them to go ahead of him. “Let’s go,” he said. “Slowly. We want him to follow us.”

Elena stared at him as they started walking. “You’re gonna leave her back there all alone?”

“If I didn’t, she’d kick my ass,” he said, just a hint of pride in his voice. 

“Cool.” Elena toyed with the lining on her bag, eyes wistful and admiring.

“ _So_ taking selfies,” Alex announced.

Behind them, the man peeked around the corner. As he saw them on the move again, he stepped out and tried to walk normally. He wasn’t trained to trail someone, though, and he walked too fast at first before slowing down as he got too close. He either stared at them so hard Luke could feel the man’s gze on the back of his neck, or, if Luke so much as half-glanced behind, the man looked anywhere but at him He also tried to act normally despite how he breathed as if he were on the verge of death. 

He was so busy watching Luke, Elena, and Alex that he didn’t see Claire fall into step behind him. He didn’t notice her as she moved in closer. The first time he thought he might have been sussed out was when she tased him in the side.

He fell to the ground, gargling and twitching.

Some of the people walking past glanced at Claire, wondering if they should get involved. Claire frowned and gave a slight shake of her head. She pointed at him with her taser. “Pervert,” she explained.

The few people who didn’t dismiss the situation outright looked at the man on the ground, then pointedly looked away.

Luke paused, and he and Claire looked at the man on the ground. They couldn’t just leave him there. He could get mugged, or hell, even murdered. They met each other’s eyes. They had to get Elena and Alex home safely. Sticking around to take care of this guy wouldn’t help that.

Claire walked over to them, slipping her taser into her pocket in case she needed it later. “Well. That was easy enough. Let’s get you guys home. Maybe get some pizza on the way?”

They set off, leaving the man behind.

* * *

“This is boring,” Jessica complained. Behind them, another man fell in with the small crowd that had been tailing them for several blocks. “Why don’t they just attack already?”

“Probably because that hasn’t worked out for them yet. The shoot-out in their bar. The hotel. They’re probably waiting for more people. Maybe some heavy artillery.”

Jessica considered, then nodded approvingly. “At least that would be interesting. Sometimes hitting normal people gets old.”

Sharon looked at her side-long and shook her head. “Sure. Getting jumped by potentially super-powered neo-Nazis. Interesting.” She stopped again, ostensibly looking at a window display. “What bothers me is that they _know_ to wait. They know to wait until they have enough people.” Remembering her cover, she tilted her head to the side. “Right? I mean… that’s weird, right?”

Jessica shrugged. “They’re probably getting orders from someone,” she said dismissively. Her eyes glanced toward a door that opened ahead of them as she checked the small crowd behind them. “What, you think this asshole brigade is the first one without a leader?”

Sharon didn’t answer. Jessica had a point; someone had realized she was in the hotel across the street and searched for her. Or sent others to search for her. She’d taken it for granted that the old man at the bar was the leader, but he didn’t strike her as intelligent enough to orchestrate this. She didn’t think he would have realized she’d be staking them out from across the street at the bar. But someone had realized it.

Someone was organizing them. Someone was telling them what to do, where to go. This wasn’t a typical neo-Nazi outfit. 

And as tempted as she was to bounce such ideas off of Jessica, she held herself back. Her cover was Stefanie’s inexperienced but well-intentioned friend.

“I just didn’t think neo-Nazi people would be so organized,” she said instead. She had another problem: Jessica was a civilian. Technically, so was Sharon now. But Sharon was a fugitive-civilian. Jessica was a civilian-civilian. Just because she had an attitude and a leather jacket didn’t mean she had the ability to take on a neo-Nazi gang. And if Jessica got hurt, it was on Sharon. “You know, if they’re going to attack me, I’d hate for you to get caught up in it.”

Jessica watched her out of the corner of her eye as she pretended to study a leather jacket in the window. “No way. This is finally getting good. When do you think they’re going to do something?”

If it had been Sharon directing the men following them, she would have had them lure or chase her and Jessica away from people who might help them or call the cops. She scanned the area, part relieved that there were still people around, part anxious to get Jessica away before the men began their attack. But that wasn’t how her cover would think. “I don’t know. All I know is that they drive through crowds and stuff. Should we get off the sidewalk? Maybe stop in a shop and ask if we can stay while we call the cops?”

She saw familiar movement out of the corner of her eye and glanced back, her expression turning steely. She’d been wrong. Instead of waiting until there were fewer people around, they’d been waiting until they had _more_ people.

Jessica followed her gaze. “ _Finally._ ” She stepped toward them, and Sharon grabbed her arm. Jessica looked at Sharon’s hand in a clear warning to remove it.

“Too many people,” Sharon said quickly. She looked around. There was a crowd of at least fifteen behind them, and she spotted a group of eight up ahead at the corner. She frowned. The men were obviously there to threaten them, which meant they were being chased in another direction. There was no way to go to the right, but there was an empty storefront across the street to the left. Sharon stepped into the street, wondering how the hell she was going to get Jessica out of this and keep her cover in tact at the same time.

“Would it be easier for you if you told me what’s really going on?” Jessica asked, falling into step beside her.

Sharon looked at her. “Hm?”

Jessica gave her a “get real” look. “You’re not just a friend of the family doing the mom a favor. You dodged those guys yesterday. You’ve been questioning people moderately well. And ‘Marie Fourcade’ is the name of a resistance fighter from World War II - I looked it up last night. The way you handled Elena and Alex. Stefanie Jimenez was SHIELD. You were, too.” 

Sharon didn’t answer. She wished Jessica hadn’t sprung this on her when they weren’t about to get jumped by a gang of angry, violent white supremacists.

Jessica didn’t relent. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Sharon grimaced. “Do I need to say anything at this point?” The men were forming a semicircle around them, leaving the storefronts ahead of them as their only option. She knew, instinctively, that they were going to end up in the empty one. From here, she could see wood shavings and a concrete dust on the sidewalk that indicated it was empty for renovations. Maybe the men intended to drop the two of them in a pit and fill it with concrete. 

“The truth,” Jessica said firmly. “I don’t like being lied to. And I don’t like people I know being lied to.”

Sharon glanced behind them before looking at Jessica. “Okay,” she said at last. She talked fast. There was no telling how much time they had before the guys got impatient, but she guessed it wasn’t long. “Yeah. I used to be a SHIELD agent. Not anymore, though. I’ve been tracking people down who got outted by the infodump so they can be buried by their families. Jimenez is the most recent. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in going back to Danny’s without me...”

Jessica made no move to leave. She seemed entirely unconcerned by the men herding them. “The mom really dying?”

Sharon shrugged. “I don’t know. But she’s gone without knowing what happened to her daughter for almost five years. So… You should leave, Jessica. These guys aren’t here to ask me for my autograph.” She hopped onto the sidewalk and wasn’t thrilled to see Jessica follow suit.

Jessica’s eyes narrowed at the men surrounding them. She looked back to Sharon, her gaze working its way slowly from Sharon’s boots to Sharon’s face. Her tone disbelieving, she asked, “You really think you can fight these guys on your own?”

Trying not to be offended, Sharon said blithely, “Them? Easily.” She moved closer down the street, hoping that Jessica might still leave, hoping to delay the inevitable. The bikers closed in quickly; and she could have sworn she heard one of them growl.

She made a show of backing down as if afraid, but she kept trying to buy time by testing the doors of the buildings they passed. All of them were locked. She bit her lip. Jessica knew who she was – or at least, _what_ she was. She didn’t have to mask her concern behind supposed dumbness anymore. “But white nationalists aren’t smart enough to do this on their own. They either go with the old ways - get a group together in a parking lot and then go over to their house to kill them, or new ways - basically domestic terrorism. And they’re obviously getting to target me, but they aren’t going about it like they normally would. They’re waiting. And honestly? I don’t want you here when they get tired of waiting.” She trailed off, a line forming between her brows as she thought.

Jessica didn’t bother to pretend she was paying attention to anything other than the men who were now standing ten feet away. Sharon was one door away from the empty storefront. “I think they’re done waiting. Which is good, because I’m done waiting, too.”

“They’re herding us somewhere they think no one will be able to help us. You get that, right?”

“And then they’ll finally jump us,” Jessica said, irritated that she’d already had to wait for so long. She strode toward the door and held her fists at her side.

Sharon had to try one last time, even though it was now unlikely that Jessica could get away unscathed. Unlikely, but not impossible. “Jessica, look. I really do appreciate that you and your friends want to help people, but these people have guns. And numbers.”

“You heard Claire say I have super-strength, right?”

Sharon shrugged. “I know people with super-strength. And I know how rare it is.”

“Do you know people who are bulletproof?”

Sharon grinned at her. “If you only knew.”

Jessica glowered at her, but it wasn’t enough to make Sharon keep talking. “I’m not leaving until I’ve beaten the crap out of a Nazi.”

“I don’t think your friends would like you getting shot,” Sharon argued.

It was Jessica’s turn to grin; there was something wolfish about it. “Try to stop me.”

The two of them stared at each other. As impatient as Jessica was, it was evident that she had every intention of waiting Sharon out as long as she had to.

As the moment drew out and the men around them started to shift and grumble, Sharon blinked. “Wait. Are you waiting for me to open the door?”

“Why did you think I was standing here?” Jessica snapped.

“Unbelievable.” Sharon wrenched the door open and stood clear in case the door was rigged to shoot her somehow. “I hope you don’t regret sticking with me for all this.”

“You must have been a cheerleader in school.” Jessica watched Sharon disappear inside, catching the door and smiling brightly at the men. “In here, then?” she called. “Okay. Oh, golly, gee, I hope nothing bad happens to me in there.” She slipped into the doorway and closed the door securely behind her. “ Out of curiosity - how many of these guys did you piss off, anyway?”

Sharon wandered deeper inside the building, inspecting the shadows and trying to determine what in her environment she could use in a lobby. Jessica trailed after her.

They stood in a lobby of what might have once been an apartment complex, a wide, open space that allowed plenty of room to maneuver and concrete pillars with remnants of art deco paint and designs. Some larger equipment, yellow and unnameable to people not interested in dealing with concrete, was chained to a back corner. The ceiling above had been gutted. A pile against the wall to Sharon’s right contained rotten wood, plaster, dead rodents, and an alarming number of Bud Lite cans. To Jessica’s left, some furniture had been set up to provide a sort of rest area, though it wasn’t one Sharon would want to use. The chairs all sagged in the middle and had chunks missing, and fresh streaks in the dust showed they had been moved against the walls within the past couple of hours. As Sharon had suspected, in the back corner across from the construction equipment was a deep hole in the floor. She couldn’t get a good look, given all of the men currently streaming in through the building’s back door.

She sighed. This was bad. Even alone, this would be bad. There were roughly thirty men in front of them, two or three deep in places. As far as she could tell, all of them were armed with baseball bats, some with the tips covered in tinfoil, and metal pipes or crowbars.

She heard noise behind her and turned her head to the side so she could watch the men who had herded them in lock the door behind them. They easily brought the number up to fifty. “Still time to turn back,” she told Jessica. “Say the word, and I’ll get you a way out.” Somehow.

“Thanks for the offer,” Jessica said dryly. “But these guys bring my property values down.”

An older man held his hand to his chest. Sharon recognized him as the bartender from Shots Bar. “ _We_ bring down the property values? We’re just trying to keep our neighborhood clean.”

Sharon and Jessica both looked around at the dirt piled into corners. Somewhere, a rat squeaked.

“You couldn’t learn how to sweep?” Sharon asked.

The man pointed a baseball bat at her. “You got my bar burned down, you bitch.”

“It was a shithole,” she said. “It’s better off dead.” She shrugged off her bag and slowly moved to the side. “May I?” Ignoring their suspicions, she set it gently on the floor and then straightened again. It wouldn’t do for anyone to use it against her in a fight.

“We’re gonna kill you!” he snapped back.

Jessica held up a hand. Several heads instantly turned toward her. “Okay. Bar burned down, boo-hoo. But can we all just agree that I’m in this fight, too? I don’t want anybody to just target her.”

“Oh,” he sneered. “We’re going to do more than just hurt you, sweetie. Get some use out of you.” Catcalls rose among the other men.

Jessica grinned, but her cheer didn’t reach her eyes. She curled her fingers into fists, and Sharon heard the knuckles pop. Sharon noted that Jessica seemed much, much happier than she had an hour ago. She also seemed much more terrifying; Sharon doubted any of the men noticed. “This’ll be fun.”

The man glared at them for several seconds. “CHESTER!” he snapped. “Get the damn cover music on!” He smiled at Sharon and Jessica. “We find it helps cover the sound of the screams.”

Sharon and Jessica, without looking at each other, both grinned. 

“Just remember,” Sharon said. “It can’t be Spice Girls. It’s not feminist to beat someone up to Spice Girls.”

Jessica half-turned toward her. “What?”

Sharon waved her off and inched forward so she would take the hits from the front first. “I’ll explain later.” She nodded to the bartender. “Ready?” She glanced at the guys behind her. “You guys good to go?”

They grinned at her, obviously comfortable in having the upper hand. She grinned back.

Somewhere behind the men, the sound of a motorcycle revving filled the air, followed by an electric guitar and drums ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2XdmyBtCRQ)). More weapons appeared; Sharon was relieved to see that none of them had guns. She was more amused to see that some of them were thumping their feet in time to the beat.

“It’s like we’re fighting the High School Musical rejects,” Jessica joked.

“Kill them!” the bartender snapped. He ran forward, swinging his bat at Jessica. Jessica diverted the bat’s path with a hand and then grabbed the man by his neck, lifting him up and throwing him back into the crowd.

The men gathered round stopped and stared at her; Sharon took the opportunity to high kick the man behind her in the throat. She grabbed her garrote from her ankle and hit another man in the center of his forehead. “Super-strength.”

“I told you.” Jessica’s eyes were on the men; she didn’t seem upset. When none of the men moved to attack, she huffed a sign and ran toward them. Several of them raised their weapons, just as unwilling to retreat as they were to attack. 

She had thought they didn’t have guns, that they would try to beat the women to death. She’d thought it was an attempt to not draw attention. Stupid.

Sharon saw the gun and ran toward the shooter. She wrenched his arm over her knee, snapping his arm. The attack put her in the middle of the crowd of men. She spun to kick someone who was coming for her, then used the force of the motion to yank the man with the gun over her and into the crowd. “They’ve got guns!” She dropped into a roll, picking up the gun as she went. Getting to her knees, she shot men in kneecaps and shoulders until the chamber was empty. They were lucky she thought they might have a lead on Stefanie, she thought grimly.

Jessica picked a man up and used him as a shield as loud pops rang out around them. “No, really?” As the man’s body began to sag, she threw it at three approaching men and grabbed another. 

Sharon fought her way over and pressed her back to Jessica’s. “Sure you don’t want a way out yet?”

Jessica looked at her in distaste, shifted her grip on the body she held, and threw him length-wise. She stepped into the crowd. A man swung a crowbar at her. Jessica grabbed it and stared the man in the eye as she bent the crowbar. She tossed it aside as he watched, flabberghasted. He was still staring when she punched him into a wall. “I needed this, actually.” Her eyes widened as she saw something alarming behind Sharon. She grabbed a man to throw, but the gunshots had already gone off.

Sharon stumbled forward and turned around in time to see the man fall under the weight of an unconscious man.

“You’re bulletproof?” Jessica asked, incredulous.

Sharon gave her a “get real” look and rubbed the light gray fabric underneath her jacket. “Come on. I just dress for success.”

“Ugh. You _would_ say something like that,” Jessica groused as she turned back to the fight.

* * *

They heard the sirens at the same time and looked at each other. The floor was littered with blood and unconscious bodies. Sharon panted as she looked them over and listened to their moans underneath the music. “We should go.” 

“You worried about the cops?” Jessica watched her, ready to take in any microexpression.

“Worried about how popular you are with them.” Sharon picked her way carefully between the bodies. It wouldn’t do to leave bloody footprints behind. “Also, I have bullet holes in my clothes, and that’s gonna be hard to explain.”

Jessica followed, kicking one man out of the way as she went. Sharon could almost hear the man’s ribs break and made a face. While she didn’t think any of the men were dead, they were certainly out of commission for a while. “I know a place.” She glanced at Sharon as she broke the metal lock on the back door and shoved the door open. “I have questions.”

Sharon brushed some hair out of her face. “Lead the way. I have some questions myself.”

The two of them were quiet as the sirens got louder, and Sharon pulled off her jacket and slung it over her arm right as the cops came into view. Like so many New Yorkers, she barely spared them a glance.

“You’ve done this before,” Jessica observed, her eyes on the buildings around them.

“Methinks you have, too.”

“’Methinks?’ Seriously?”

Sharon shrugged. “So. Super-strength. That was… stronger than I anticipated.”

“You’re less dead than I anticipated. SHIELD training?”

“And ballet and gymnastics growing up. But, you know.” At Jessica’s disbelieving look, she made a face again. “Yeah. SHIELD training.”

“And cheerleading, probably,” Jessica muttered.

Sharon flipped her off. So what if there’d been a bit of cheerleading in her past? She’d been a student who did gymnastics on the side and wanted to get into SHIELD. Of _course_ she’d made the cheerleading team. 

Jessica snorted and led the way to the subway. There were too many people around for anything more than light chitchat, and neither of them seemed particularly skilled at it. The two shared a glance, looked at their surroundings, then again at each other, and settled in for a silent ride. Minutes later, Jessica led the way off, and Sharon trailed along. There was something companionable in the silence, and she wondered if it was the fight that had bonded them or the increased familiarity or both.

Jessica stopped on a corner at the entrance to Josie’s Bar, and Sharon took in the building. The moderately-sized windows on either side of the door were faintly dingy, and the panelling over the front door was a fogged piece of plastic. In the left window was a lighted sign in red block letters reading JOSIE’S. In the right window, the letters were larger, white, and unlit. The glass on the left was cleaner, and through it, Sharon could see a bar stretching along the left-hand wall, the form of a bartender and some patrons.

She sighed. “What if I say I’ve had my fill of bars?”

Reading her expression, Jessica said, “It’s okay. Josie would never let people like that in her bar. Plus, it’s almost impossible for me to get kicked out of here.”

“Knowing you as well as I do, I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” Sharon said.

Jessica opened the door and stepped inside. She nodded to something on the wall, but it was too dark for Sharon to see well. There were lighted beer brand signs and a single string of lights going around the room. It was even smaller inside than it looked, with the bar and a pool table in the back taking up most of the space. “I knew him. Worked with him a little. And he had fans here. That means they don’t kick me out, even when they want to. So what do you want?”

Sharon shrugged. “Whatever’s on tap. The heaviest they’ve got.”

Jessica nodded and disappeared to place the order, calling Josie’s name. She was greeted by name in turn, in a voice that was almost fond underneath its wariness.

Alone, Sharon drifted closer to the picture. It was framed, a man with tan skin, brown hair, dark red glasses and a large smile. She could see enough of his suit to tell that it was on the cheap side. Beside and around the picture were candles, wilting flowers and other trinkets. Underneath, a small plaque read, “Matthew Murdock, Avocado At Law.”

Hearing her name, Sharon turned to take her beer from Jessica, who spared the photo a glance. They each took a sip of their beers in silence.

“So,” Sharon said slowly, “who was he?”

“An idiot,” Jessica said flatly. She grabbed a chair and sank into it. “He was a Defender for a while.” She grimaced. “Don’t tell Danny I said that name. But Matt… he was some stupid do-gooder who tried to do good one too many times. And he was blind lawyer who worked for baked goods and other crap in his day job. Which is how everybody here knew him. I don’t know how many people knew what he really did – he was freaking crap at the secret identity thing, but no one talks about how Matt and Daredevil disappeared at the same time.”

Sharon didn’t have to ask what had happened to him; she knew a memorial when she saw it. She also knew better than to tease Jessica about the name. Jessica might have an attitude, but Sharon didn’t think she was without feeling. “The community seems to have liked him very much,” she said.

Jessica grunted and planted her glass on the end of the bar. “So. You’re bulletproof.”

Sharon’s grin was small. She sat on the stool and took another sip of her beer. It didn’t escape her notice that Jessica had chosen an area away from everyone else and that Josie was staying at the far end of the bar. “It’s… it’s a kind of armor. A scientist friend made it for me.” She lifted her shirt to show the dull gray fabric. In this lighting, it looked almost dark, and the details in the stitching and design that Sharon had admired in private moments was lost. “It’s like kevlar As close to bullet-proof as I can get.”

“That a SHIELD thing?”

Sharon rolled her eyes and opted not to answer. She’d made promises not to compromise some allies, and she had no intention on going back on her word. “So. You’re super-strong.”

“Yeah, and I’m also still pissed off that you didn’t believe me.”

She shrugged. “In my defense, I thought I knew all the super-strong people in existence. And most of them have muscles bigger than their heads.”

Jessica’s eyes fell to her moderately-sized arms and shrugged. “Well, most people don’t believe it. Even after they see it. Weird how that works. No probably believing Captain America’s strong enough to bench-press a tank, but if I throw a car around, it must be a trick.”

Sharon huffed out a humorless laugh. “Yeah. Weird how that happens.”

“I guess being a SHIELD agent prepares you for all sorts of shit,” Jessica said, watching Sharon carefully. “So how many people have you found?”

“Alive? Or total.”

“Both.”

Sharon thought for a moment. “Eighty-seven. None alive.” She took a long drink of her beer.

Jessica’s fingers played along her glass. “And you’ve been at it how long?”

“Nonstop for two, two and a half years now. Before that, I’d do it when I could.”

“What happened two, two and a half years ago?”

Sharon met her eyes, and the silence between them stretched. “And what about you?” she said, instead of answering. “You’re obviously smart. Tough. You know the cops. Don’t tell me you’re some Dashiell Hammet-type, hardboiled private eye.”

Jessica’s lips twisted into something that could have been a grin. “He didn’t have any women private eyes. I’m more like Miss Marple, if she were young, pissed off, and more willing to throw people out a window for asking her questions. Just me and my knitting needles, trying to live a quiet, peaceful life.”

Sharon grinned and leaned back. “So the others really are… Bu-”

“Bulletproof, ninja, and the Immortal Iron Fist.”

“Yeah,” Sharon interjected. “What the hell _is_ that? I know you said it glows, but, like, what _is_ it?”

Jessica rolled her eyes so hard her head followed suit. “It’s the stupidest shit. He knows kung-fu, but when he wants to hit something _really_ hard, he channels his chi or something, and it makes his body parts glow and get stronger.”

Sharon’s eyes narrowed. “ _All_ of his body parts?” The tone was suggestive.

Jessica glared at her as she sipped her beer. “I would rather die than find out.” She rubbed her eyes. “I need to tell him to stop describing it like that.”

Sharon watched people walk by on the street for several seconds. “The odds of finding Stefanie Jimenez alive aren’t good.”

Jessica snorted. Obviously, she seemed to say.

Sharon sighed. “I almost had hope earlier,” she admitted. “But she’s just going to be number eighty-eight.”

Jessica didn’t say she was wrong. She played with her glass some more and took a long sip of her beer. “What was it like?”

“Finding eighty-seven corpses? Not great. A depressing number of people like to burn evidence, even when the evidence is people.”

Shaking her head, Jessica said, “No. I mean the infodump. SHIELD falling. What was it like having all your secrets out like that?”

Sharon didn’t answer right away. Very quickly, she only had a quarter of her beer left. “Awful,” she said at last. “I got lucky. I survived. But that was the- I sometimes think that was the worst part. Like, if I’d died then, people would know what happened to me. But afterward, anyone who survived was declared a traitor. They couldn’t tell which of us were loyal and which of us were Hydra. And then so many files got leaked... So many agents were compromised. And there was no one to help them. That was what really pissed me off. The alphabet soup just turned its back on them because SHIELD agents were persona non grata and not worth saving anymore.” She finished her beer. “So. You know. The infodump was great. Real fun,” she finished wryly. She nodded to Jessica’s half-empty glass. “You want another?”

Jessica paused, then downed the drink in one go. “Tell Josie to open a tab. You’re good for it, right?”

“You help me find Stefanie Jimenez, especially alive, I’ll even buy you a pony.” Sharon took her glass and came back with full glasses. Setting Jessica’s in front of her, she said, “But for now, yeah. I can handle a tab. So. Where does your anger and violence come from?”

Jessica looked at her, unimpressed. “What.”

Sharon held up her hands. “It’s not a therapy session, I swear. But I couldn’t help but notice that you really enjoyed hitting people back there.”

“Who doesn’t like hitting neo-Nazis?” Jessica asked. “Everyone should get at least one free hit at one in their lives.”

“You can hit them as many times as want,” Sharon told her. She drank her beer, watching Jessica. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I’m not going to,” Jessica said firmly.

Sharon sighed and took her notebook from her bag. 

Jessica leaned forward to read the coded scribbles and frowned. “What’s that?”

“My burn book,” Sharon said, more for her own amusement than anything else. “I’m going to talk about what a rude bitch you are.”

Jessica huffed and turned back to her drink.

After a moment’s consideration - Jessica _had_ stayed to help her at huge personal risk to herself, after all, she continued. “It’s a report of sorts. If I think I’m not going to make it out of a situation, I hide this, and once someone notices me missing, they can pick it up later and pick up where I left off.”

Jessica eyed how many pages Sharon flipped over to get to a blank one. “That’s not the first time you got jumped. Last night wasn’t, either.”

Sharon grinned and shrugged. She made a notations about the fight’s time, location, and how many people were involved. “There’s a reason a friend gave me a bulletproof onesie.” After a moment, she opted not to mention Jessica or her powers.

“It’s that important?” Jessica argued. “Jimenez is dead. It’s been five years. It’s not like her mom can’t figure out what happened - she just can’t accept it yet.”

Sharon closed the notebook and tucked it away carefully in her bag. “It’s not just for her mom. It’s- The agents I’ve been tracking down. They gave their lives to SHIELD. And they got screwed for it. It wasn’t their fault - they did everything SHIELD asked of them. They did good work. _Necessary_ work. They deserve to be buried. Honored. They deserve for people to know they weren’t Hydra, that they were good people trying to protect people.” She took a gulp of her beer. “And if I do find any alive... can you imagine? Being left out in the cold like that? What it would do to them? Knowing that no one ever came to help them?”

Jessica looked into her glass. “Fine,” she said at last. “Fine. We’ll find Jimenez’s body. Even though it’s a waste of time.”

“Charmer.”

“But first,” Jessica said, “we’re getting shit-faced. Come on.”

“You just think I’ll answer questions if I’m shit-faced,” Sharon said, amused.

Jessica shrugged, but they both knew Sharon was right. “And I also want to get shit-faced.” She waved Sharon toward Josie, making it obvious that Sharon would be settling the bill _and_ getting the drinks, and Sharon rolled her eyes as she went. 

Hours later, her limbs feeling fluid and her head feeling loose, the two more-or-less stumbled out the door. Josie had rung the bell for last call, and Jessica planned to stop by a liquor store. It had turned out to be a weird but good night, Sharon thought.

Neither of them noticed the shadowy figure two blocks away, sitting on a stoop that was hidden in shadow. Nor did they notice when the young bartender when drifted silently after them.


	8. Marie-Madeleine Fourcade iv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One cannot recover peacefully from a hangover when one is in the company of Jessica Jones. Also, when one is an international fugitive with ties to very famous fugitives.

“If that’s your phone,” Jessica threatened in a low growl, “I’m going to kill you.”

Sharon cracked open an eye. Her head was pounding. She could somewhat remember thinking the night before that the office’s calm grays and blues didn’t suit Jessica, but now, with the harshness of a hangover-tinged New York dawn, she thought the room looked awful. The sun looked awful. Everything looked awful.

So did she. Or at least, she _felt_ awful. Her hair was probably a bird’s nest. Her face likely had creases pressed into it from the sheets and she could see upon inspection that her clothes were wrinkled.

In contrast, Jessica looked disgustingly flawless. Her raven-black hair was still smooth, with just a few strands out of place to show that she was human. Her pale skin was perfect. Sharon’s eyes hurt just to look at her.

She groaned and felt around as the phone continued to ring, getting louder the longer she didn’t answer. She hadn’t set it to do that. No, the problem was that everything was getting louder the longer her eyes were open. Her eyes burned. “Did you drug me?” she accused, her voice a croak. She pushed herself up with a groan. Her head spun, and she felt a nausea she hadn’t felt in a long time. With a sigh, she gave up and settled on leaning over the edge of the bed. Carried forward by her weight, she rolled onto the floor. 

Jessica pushed herself up and looked at her through narrowed eyes. “You just fall out of bed?”

“... was the plan,” she muttered. With the help of the bed and the bedside table, she managed to get to her feet. Her path into Jessica’s attached office was less than straight, and she’d barely made it to the opening before the phone stopped ringing. The moment’s reprieve gave her time to note the empty bottles on the desk, a couple of shelves, and a number on the floor. She stared at the bottles as she pressed a hand to her forehead.

There was a sigh of relief from the bedroom, and Sharon heaved one herself.

The phone started ringing again, and Sharon flinched at the frustrated yell from the bedroom.

Sharon reached for her bag, knocking over some of the empty liquor bottles from the night before. Jesus. How much had the two of them drank? Other than too much, she’d figured that much out on her own. She grabbed her bag, the straps catching more bottles and knocking them over, the noise far, far too loud. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. In the other room, Jessica was ominously silent. Sharon thought the silence sounded like Jessica was plotting murder.

“You remember how much we drank last night?” Sharon called.

“Shut. Up,” Jessica muttered.

Sharon found her phone and heaved a sigh of relief. With a press of a button, the hellish ringing died. “Hello?”

“Hey! There you are!” Sam Wilson’s warm voice would have been a wonderful thing to hear if he’d called at any other time. As it was, she cringed. She pushed some of the bottles on the floor out of the way and tried not to grit her teeth at the sound of the glasses clinking together. Once there was enough of a clear space, she leaned against Jessica’s desk with her eyes closed. “You didn’t check in yesterday. What was that sound?”

“Sam,” Sharon greeted him, her hands covering her eyes. “Sorry. And if you could lower your voice...”

“Is she okay?” a voice asked in the background. Sharon looked at the phone through her fingers as Sam hushed the other speaker. She knew that voice. Deep and soft, the kind of voice that could inspire people in a crowd and make her insides tremble when they were alone. She pressed her hand against her mouth, not wanting to think about him or deal with him right now. Her head hurt. Her eyes hurt. Her body hurt. Hearing him wasn’t doing anything to help that.

“Anyway,” Sam said. “ _I_ was just calling to check up on you. You okay? You sound kind of weird.”

“Weird how?” the other voice asked.

Ah, yes. Sam was calling because the other person with him was too afraid to call her himself. Ugh. She took a breath and tried to ignore the other voice. “I’m fine. It’s just white supremacists. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“White supremacists? I thought you were tracking down an agent.”

“What kind of white supremacists?” the voice in the background asked.

Sharon closed her eyes. If the white supremacists had broken in to kill her right then, she wasn’t sure she’d bother to fight them off. “Stefanie Jimenez was looking into them before she disappeared, which meant I had to track them down to find out what they know.”

“How’s it looking?” Sam’s voice was softer, almost consoling. He knew about the previous eighty-seven.

“Bad,” she admitted. “Nothing to do about it now but bring her hooooh my God.”

“What? Sharon? You okay?”

She groaned and tried to ignore the stabs of pain that came with the other man’s echoing concern over the line. “Yeah. Just- just a killer hangover.”

There was silence on the other end.

And then Sam yelled, “YOU HAVE A _HANGOVER?_ ”

She groaned again, pain shooting through her head, then grunted as a pillow hit her in her in the side of her face hard enough to knock her onto the ground. She flipped off Jessica before holding her phone back to her ear. She didn’t bother trying to sit up again. The floor was too comfortable. “Sam. I’m going to kill you.”

He laughed. “Hey, I’m just glad you’re not dead in the desert somewhere. Not that I was _really_ worried, but you know how _some people_ can get.”

“I wasn’t _that_ worried,” the voice in the background said.

The sound of his voice elicited another groan. “Sam. I’m fine. Well, not fine. But alive. I think.” He chuckled at that. “Things got crazy yesterday.”

“Sounds like it,” he mused. 

She wrinkled her nose at the phone. “I’ll text tonight. Promise.”

“Will you be recovered by then?” he asked innocently.

“Recovered enough to seriously kill you.”

“Okay, okay. When should we expect your totally-sober and not-at-all-hungover text?”

Sharon hissed and picked up her head again. What codes did they have? Why couldn’t her brain work? “Shit,” she whispered.

“What?”

“What’d she say?”

“Steve, shu- Don’t you use that gesture on me, young man.”

Sharon set the phone down on the desk and took a deep breath. After rubbing her temples for several seconds, she picked the phone up again. “The time we met at the aquarium.”

He was quiet for a second. “Which aquarium? Because I know you two have gone to multiple aquariums. Without me. Not that I’m complaining. You know, even though I happen to like aquariums, too.” 

Sharon sighed. “He said, complaining.” Right. They had two different kinds of codes built around animals people could see in aquariums. “Uh... the one where Scott refused to get any ice cream after because it was a Baskin Robbins. And Wanda wanted to stay and watch the stingrays.” 

“The one that was, like, five stories of water?”

Sharon nodded, only to groan again and rest her forehead against the desk. “Putting you on speaker,” she warned. She set the phone on the floor beside to her. “Yeah, that one. The big one.”

Sam whistled. “You really can’t handle your liquor.”

“Is she okay?” 

Taking another deep breath, she said, “It’s been a while since I last had to handle that much liquor.” She couldn’t help but think she’d been Little-Leaguing it her own life until last night, when Jessica had pulled her straight into a Major League World Series. “But I’m fine. I can handle it. Just... so hungover. There were... The beers were fine. The vodka, fine. I just can’t remember anything after the tequila.”

“Who’d you even drink with?” Sam asked. “Fury doesn’t strike me as a party person.”

“You’d be surprised how much Fury can handle.” She sighed and rested her head against the desk again. “I met somebody.”

There was blessed silence from the other end, and for the first time since waking up, Sharon felt as if the pain wasn’t that bad. Then there were sounds of a scuffle, and then Sam said, “Like a _guy_ somebody?”

Sharon straightened and glared at her phone. If her brain weren’t so sluggish, she’d never have said that she’d met somebody. At least she understood why they’d been silent now. “Does it matter?”

Another stretch of silence, followed by a hesitant, “No.”

Sharon sighed. “I went out with someone who’s helping me on the case. It wasn’t like that.”

“I didn’t think it-”

“And even if it _were_ like that, I’m single. I can do that.”

“Sure. Never said you couldn’t do-”

“If I wanted to do that, I would.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

There was another stretch of silence. “So you can tell him to cool his jets.”

“I’m not even sure he’ll get that reference,” Sam said lightly.

“I can figure it out from context.” And then louder, as if he were raising his voice to be heard, and then walking up to the phone on top of that, “Sharon? It’s me. It’s fine. I get it. We’re broken up. Just be sure to drink lots of water and check in with us later so we know you’re all right. Talk to you later. Text you later, I mean. I mean- never mind.”

The line went dead, and Sharon glared at the phone. She made a face and silently mimicked Steve for a couple seconds before flipping off the phone. Not feeling any better, but knowing that a continued outburst wouldn’t improve anything, she moved her phone back to her bag and rested her forehead against her knees. Outburst or no, she still didn’t feel better.

“Was that Captain America?” Jessica called from the other room.

“Shut up.” She hadn’t thought she could hurt worse than she had ten minutes ago, but here she was, only now it was a hurt that was underscored by a deep, painful ache. It was easier to deal with when she was working, but she could only drown herself in her work for so long. Ugh. Just… why did he have to be so… _him?_

“You know Captain America?” Jessica asked. This time, her voice was closer, and Sharon forced herself to look up. Jessica stood in the doorway, looking like a sour-faced model. An independently-standing, on-balance, sour-faced model.

“How are you not in pain?” Sharon demanded, ignoring Jessica’s questions.

Jessica shrugged. “I can’t help it if you’re a lightweight. I’m gonna take a piss. Then you’re going to tell me how you know Captain America.” She turned and left Sharon staring at the space where she had been. 

Sharon sighed and looked at all the empty bottles on the desk. Had the two of them really had that much to drink last night? Her memories were fuzzy. She knew she hadn’t given up too much information – her SHIELD training would have held out no matter how much she’d had to drink. But not being able to remember the night before still bothered her.

She lay on the ground and balanced one of the bottles on her forehead. The glass was cool against her skin. It wasn’t as refreshing as an ice pack, but it was still nice.

She heard a key turn in the lock and bolted upright. A wave of dizziness and nausea hit, but she shoved it down to reach for her garrote. 

Jessica had a beveled glass pane in her door, and as Sharon’s vision cleared, she could make out the shape of a woman on the other side. She blinked to clear her vision better, took a deep breath to keep the nausea at bay, and decided a garrote would do her little good if she couldn’t even stay on her feet.

The door opened to reveal a thin, blonde woman. Her hair was perfectly straight, her clothes expensive and fashionably understated. Her makeup on her pale beige skin was perfect.

Sharon quelled her irritation. Jessica woke up looking perfect. This woman looked perfect. And then there was Sharon, sitting on the floor feeling like a bilious monstrosity, doubting whether or not she wanted to look in a mirror.

The woman looked into the room, evidently knowing Jessica well enough to look toward the bedroom first. “Jess? I-” Her head turned toward the empty bottles, her expression turning to one of frustrated concern. When her eyes jumped to the human-sized lump in the middle of them, and she went still and stared at Sharon. “Hi.” She seemed more surprised to find Sharon there than the gun in Sharon’s hands.

“Hi,” Sharon said awkwardly. “I- uh. Jess is… taking a piss?” Oh, God. Why was that the best thing she could think to say? Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement in the hall and breathed a little in relief. She didn’t know the woman, and she felt too wretched inside and out to want to deal with her alone right now.

Jessica leaned against the doorway and glowered at the woman as if an expensive pair of shoes had dragged in a five-foot-eight pile of shit. “Trish. What are you doing here?”

“Brunch.” Her voice was too cheerful to be genuine. She looked from Jessica to Sharon and back again, then to the tens of bottles scattered on the floor. About to say something, she swallowed it down. “Remember? I left you voicemails about them.”

“I delete your voicemails. Remember?”

In the silence that followed, Sharon sat awkwardly on the floor and studied her shoes. She wondered Jessica had any aspirin.

Trish, still trying to keep up an appearance of confidence and good cheer, said, “I understand. But this isn’t for me. It’s about Karen.”

Jessica’s eyes narrowed.

“You like Karen,” Trish wheedled, implying that Jessica didn’t like Trish.

This would be a great time for Sharon’s brain to start working better. Something was obviously going on here, and she had no idea what it was.

“She needs this,” Trish added.

Silence fell over them again, and Sharon only had to meet Jessica’s eyes once to know better than to do it again.

Jessica sighed. At some point, she’d taken off her jacket, but she still wore a wrinkled gray shirt and torn jeans. “I’m not really the brunch type.”

“But Karen likes it, which is why we’re doing it.” 

Even hungover, Sharon could tell that was a lie. Trish was far more likely to be the brunch person; she had a designer handbag, for God’s sake.

But whoever Karen was, Jessica was willing to go along with it. “Let me get my jacket.” She glanced at Sharon. “And aspirin, for the lightweight.”

“Appreciated,” Sharon said. She looked at her feet, knowing she’d have to get up soon but dreading how it would make her feel.

Jessica left the two of them alone, and Trish studied Sharon. “Would you like to join us?”

Sharon took a breath and used the desk to help herself up. As she had anticipated, everything felt awful. “I’d like that,” she said. “And not just because getting anywhere on my own feels like an Olympic event right now.”

“Yeah, hanging out with Jess can do that.”

Sharon snorted with a small grin. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”

At least her physical pain was a distraction from other things. A sucky distraction, but a distraction nonetheless.

* * *

If she thought waking up had been painful, she’d forgotten how morning traffic in New York could be. She and Jessica both bought a coffee at the first shop they could, where Sharon added a baseball cap and a large pair of sunglasses. When Jessica started to taunt her, Sharon held up a finger in response and downed half her coffee before she’d even put the money on the counter.

The restaurant required a short subway ride, and Sharon was grimly pleased to realize Jessica wasn’t happy about the noise when she complained about Trish not finding a closer restaurant. Or maybe Trish had, as she said, chosen a place close to Karen’s work place. It was hard to tell what sort of relationship Jessica had with… anyone, really.

At least this case was more interesting than the previous ones.

Sharon bought another cup of coffee before they left the Subway and was almost feeling human by the time they left the station.

The short walk afterward took them to a brightly-lit restaurant, the brick walls painted white, exposed wooden beams high over head, and various ferns and ivy spilling over beams and a wrap-around shelf around the perimeter. Industrial-style lights overhead provided light as well as decoration. To the right was a wide bar with a light oak surface, swivel bar stools attached to the polished concrete floor. Instead of alcohol, the wall behind the bar was covered in coffee machines and cooking equipment. On either side of the bar was a large television, both showing the morning news. In the back, another bar wrapped around a wider kitchen area. There was more seating to the left, a long wooden bench covered in blue and white cushions. Tables large enough for two people apiece were arranged in front of it. The tables and the wooden patio chairs on the other side seemed to be the only movable furniture in the place.

She followed the other two to a space where two tables had been shoved together. A woman, evidently Karen, had already beaten them there, and Sharon thought she seemed as happy to see them as Jessica was to see anyone. Her greeting was polite, and she was friendly enough as Trish sat beside her on the bench. Jessica immediately took the chair across from Karen, and Sharon took the remaining chair.

“I’m not going to be human for a while,” she said apologetically to Karen. “After last night, I’m not sure I’m even alive.”

Karen nodded knowingly. “Got hit by a Jessica Jones special, huh?”

Jessica shrugged.

As Sharon picked up her menu, she noticed that everyone else did the same. Other than polite chit-chat between Trish and Karen about what was good there, the table was quiet. After several seconds, Sharon asked, “Do you think they refrigerate the cow’s milk? It worries me that they say ‘fresh cow’s milk.’ How fresh is it, exactly?”

The question got insincere and uncertain grins from Trish and Karen. Jessica made a face, but Sharon couldn’t tell if it was one of agreement or not.

When the waitress came to take their order, Sharon ordered the biggest cup of coffee she could, black, and a stack of their unhealthiest pancakes. While the others gave their orders, Sharon took a moment to turn in her seat and focus on the news. She doubted they had anything newsworthy to say – working at SHIELD had taught her how the media so often missed the major news stories in favor of simple, bite-sized stories. Most of the stories disappeared before people could understand them properly; Sharon thought sometimes the media liked it that way. The power outage in Buenos Aires they were talking about, for instance, probably wouldn’t be in the news next week. They could speculate that it was a terrorist attack all they liked, but an American news network was going to focus on American news. Too few people cared about attacks in other countries.

The waitress left, and Sharon felt the mood at the table shift to something more uncomfortable. She steeled herself and turned back to face the group.

“So,” Trish said when they were alone and silence had yet again descended. “I think Jessica said your name is Sharon?”

Sharon nodded slightly. “Yeah. I’m just in town for a while tracking someone down.”

“Who?” Karen asked. She was pretty, and her skin had that translucent quality that made her look fragile. Her supposed fragility wasn’t helped by her long, strawberry-blond hair or her bright blue eyes. She was dressed for the office, making Sharon wish she’d worn something other than her wrinkled clothes from the night before.

She hesitated as she debated how to answer. Two cups of coffee, and neither was enough. All she could think was that Jessica had told Trish her real name, which meant that Jessica trusted Trish, even though Jessica didn’t seem to like her.

Jessica leaned forward. “SHIELD agent named Stefanie Jimenez. She was staking out Shots Bar after the infodump. Definitely compromised. Probably dead.”

Sharon nodded slowly. “That,” she said. It wasn’t as if there was anything to add.

Karen nodded, suddenly much more enthused. “Anything I can do to help?” She turned to Sharon. “I’m an investigative reporter.”

“PI, sitting right here,” Jessica muttered. Only then did Sharon realized that Jessica had grabbed a drinks menu from another table and was studying their alcohol selection.

“I’m not sure there’s anything you could do,” Sharon said politely. She hoped no one could tell she planned to vomit on Jessica if an alcoholic drink arrived at their table. Judging by Trish’s glare at the menu, Sharon wouldn’t be the only person at the table who would be upset. “I’ve been poking around. I’ve got some leads. I just need to follow up on them.”

“So, what, I’m just… not allowed to help?” Karen argued. She closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. “Look. I get it. Everyone’s afraid that I’m shutting myself off because Matt’s gone, and that I have nothing but work, but working _helps._ Focusing on something other than Matt, it helps.”

“Avoiding can’t help forever,” Trish said gently. “You don’t have to stop working, but closing yourself off from possibilities will only hurt worse.”

Karen tensed as if she had heard similar things before. “This isn’t me avoiding my problems. This is me helping people. Matt helped people. You two help people. Even you,” she said, looking to Sharon. “I mean, probably.” She cast about as she tried to guess what Sharon did, but Sharon didn’t rush to fill in the blanks. “You’re trying to give Stefanie Jimenez’s mother closure. Why shouldn’t I try to help?”

Trish sighed. Sharon had seen that reaction before, too. Trish wanted Karen to know she had someone to listen, that she had friends, but also knew she couldn’t force things.

“She’s not bad at finding stuff out,” Jessica said, still not looking away from the drink menu. “Matt trusted her. And those guys already know about us.”

Sharon narrowed her eyes at Jessica. She didn’t like logic at ass-o-clock in the morning. Besides, Sharon still had options. She knew how to torture people, after all. SHIELD had taught her that. SHIELD had also taught her the wisdom of keeping her circle of trust small. Keep things contained. Keep things controllable.

The waitress brought their coffee, and Sharon ignored Jessica gesturing for some vodka as she studied Karen. The woman looked determined. Already, her jaw was set, and she met Sharon’s eyes without any sign of flinching. If Sharon told Karen no, Karen wouldn’t listen. She would likely get hurt; she could even be murdered. Whoever was pulling the neo-Nazis’ strings, they knew Sharon was poking around. They’d had her followed. They’d likely do the same to Karen if they noticed her poking around, and if Sharon alienated Karen, that meant Karen was unlikely to call her for help if she needed it. Sharon had seen enough death.

Sharon sipped her coffee and waited until they were alone. The solution was simple, but it still galled her. The only way to control the situation was to make the circle bigger. To add to her grouchiness on the matter, she could remember Steve’s speeches on trust. She wasn’t in the mood to hear Steve, period.

“We got attacked by people trying to stop us from finding Jimenez,” she said carefully. “They planned on raping and murdering us.” Karen and Trish both leaned forward. Karen was interested, but wary. Trish, interestingly, looked like she was gearing up for a fight. “If you’re going to help with this, you check in with me. Daily. More often, if you can. And you don’t take any risk that might put you in harm’s way. Got it?”

Jessica snorted, but Karen nodded. “Yeah. Got it.” The response was too quick. She obviously didn’t get it.

Sharon sighed. She pulled a picture of Jimenez from her notebook and slid it toward Karen; she didn’t say anything about Trish looking over Karen’s shoulder. “Stefanie Jimenez was assigned to watch a white supremacist cell with suspected international funding. She was last seen after a Latvian women’s hockey game. When the girls in Africa were kidnapped - probably the Boko Haram kidnapping, which means April 14 – an acquaintance realized she hadn’t seen Stefanie in a while. We know she was at the hotel across from Shots Bar when SHIELD fell and that she stayed there after. What we don’t know is when she disappeared or where she is now.”

Karen studied the picture closely. “That’s all you know?”

“SHIELD agents don’t get out much,” Jessica said.

Sharon turned to glare at her in exasperation. Though Karen might have suspected Sharon was SHIELD, Sharon hadn’t intended to come out and _tell_ her.

Karen only glanced at them before looking again to the picture. Sharon sighed. Yep. Karen had heard Jessica out her. She was starting to understand why Jessica didn’t get along with people. “How did you find out when she was last seen?”

“A source in the hotel across the street. An associate of hers knew Stefanie’s cover.”

Karen took a photo of Stefanie’s picture on her phone and handed it back; Sharon slipped it back in the notebook, then into the backpack.

“I want to help, too.”

Jessica snorted. “No job,” she said. Though she had ostensibly said it under her breath to Sharon, it was loud enough to be heard by both the other women. Sharon suspected that had been Jessica’s intention.

“I’d be glad for your help,” she said, hoping Trish couldn’t hear the lie. “But I’d hate to put you at risk, too.”

“I’m tougher than I look.”

Again, Jessica snorted.

Sharon hesitated, casting about for something else she could say that would keep the peace and keep Trish out of trouble. At length, she said, “I’m going to be completely honest with you.” Trish tensed. Sharon leaned toward her. “I’m way too hungover for this conversation right now.”

The waitress brought over Jessica’s vodka and lingered to refill their coffees. When the waitress left, Trish looked as if she were about to say something more, but she refrained. Jessica concentrated on her drink, and Karen stared into the distance as her fingers lightly tapped the table. Sharon wasn’t sure if Karen was already brainstorming ways to find Stefanie, but she was afraid to ask. Particularly in front of Trish. Silence fell, and she focused on her coffee as the news covered the latest Avengers sighting. The news anchors debated if Captain America’s new beard made him more attractive or not. Sharon growled at her coffee.

“I’m sorry,” Trish said at last. When the other three looked at her, she said it again, but she looked only at Karen. “I’m sorry. I thought this would help somehow. You know, doing something normal. Hanging out with people. But.” She shrugged.

“She’s used to having people willingly tell her about all their problems,” Jessica said. Lifting her head, she explained for Sharon’s benefit. “She has a radio show. Used to. Sad sacks used to call in and tell her about why they’re so sad.”

“They weren’t that bad,” Trish argued. “But yeah. I used to have a show.” Her eyes never left Jessica, as if pleading for Jessica to look at her.

Sharon nodded as if she understood what they were talking about. Had their podcast fallen through? Was that what the drama was about?

Karen looked between the two of them and patted Trish’s hand. “No, it’s fine. I appreciate it. Really. I just… it helps me to work. Work is good for me.” She looked dubiously at the table. “This, this is nice, though.”

So Trish _had_ been behind all of this. Sharon glanced at Jessica, suspecting Trish’s motives weren’t entirely altruistic.

“If this is about the food, there’s a pizza place down the street,” Jessica suggested.

Karen bit her lip, but she didn’t mention how nice the restaurant was.

Trish looked to Sharon, who shrugged. “Okay,” Trish said. “Pizza place down the street it is.” She looked for the waitress, and her eyes stopped above Sharon’s head.

“Uh, isn’t that you?” Karen asked. She nodded at the television.

Sharon turned in her seat to watch. The news story had changed, and she recognized the picture on the screen next to the anchor’s head as her CIA ID picture. “-new lead in the search for Steve Rogers and the other fugitive Avengers. Sources within the investigation now believe that Sharon Carter, great-niece of SHIELD co-founder Margaret Carter, is helping them with funding and information. Margaret Carter is known as Steve Rogers’ wartime flame.” The footage switched to a picture of Aunt Peggy, and Sharon felt her heart drop.

“Worse,” the other anchor said, “our source claims that Sharon Carter and Steve Rogers are in a romantic relationship. Talk about keeping it in the family.”

Sharon’s jaw clenched. Damn it. This was bad enough, but _that_ comment was going to piss Steve off, which meant _she_ was going to have to deal with it. The worst part wasn’t that the anchor was leaning into the scandal and allegations, but that the anchor wasn’t done.

The graphic changed to stock footage of the clean-up at the Triskellion. “Sharon Carter, also known by the code name Agent 13, worked at SHIELD until it fell in April of 2014. After that, despite SHIELD agents being labeled as traitors, Carter _somehow_ managed to get a job with the CIA and was later assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Berlin. It is believed that she and Rogers first met at Margaret Carter’s funeral, where Sharon Carter delivered the eulogy, and then worked together to free James Buchanan Barnes, a.k.a., Bucky Barnes, a.k.a., the Winter Soldier, who was suspected of blowing up the UN in Vienna. He was still under suspicion of having bombed the building when Carter allegedly helped him escape, possibly as a sort of _personal_ favor to Steve Rogers. Meaning, in essence, that she helped a war criminal to escape while he was restrained in custody and under investigation. That’s treason.” _Shit._

Jessica turned to Trish. “Just put the money on the table and let’s get the hell out of here.”

Sharon couldn’t take her eyes off the television. _Shit. Shit. Shit._

“Sharon Carter has been on the run every since. Authorities do not believe she is currently with the fugitive Avengers and is operating independently of them to get them funds and information. They warn people not to engage her. Regardless of whether or not she’s armed, she’s believed to be extremely dangerous.”

The image changed to a panda that was making a splash among tourists, and Sharon turned back to the table, wondering who in the universe she’d pissed off to have a story encouraging people to look for her be followed by a panda. 

Karen leaned in. “You’re Sharon Carter, aren’t you?”

Sharon gulped down the rest of her coffee. “You’re not going to turn me in, are you?”

“Turn you- Uh, no. How do you feel about interviews?”

“Seriously?” Trish asked. She threw several bills on the counter. “I’m the one who needs an in for a job. How much of that was true?”

Sharon felt her phone vibrating and pulled it out with an exasperating sigh. “Almost none of it?” She began sending off emojis in response to the texts coming in. “Steve and Aunt Peggy were never together. Steve and I knew each other for years before the funeral. He didn’t seduce me into doing anything – Anyone who knows him knows he can’t seduce anyone.”

“I was thinking more about the fugitive part,” Trish said flatly.

Sharon glanced at her. “Oh. Yeah. No. Uh...” She tried to finish off her coffee, only to find the cup was empty. “Bucky had already escaped.” She had just helped Steve find him again afterward. The phone started to ring, and she picked up. “I know. I saw. Can’t talk right now. Later.” She hung up and returned to texting. 

“So it’s a government cover-up,” Karen said. “Who are you texting?”

Sharon glared at her and didn't answer.

Jessica slapped the table. “Come on. We’ll order pizza at Danny’s place.” She looked at Sharon. “You have to tell them the truth.”

Joy, she thought grimly. She would have to hope they had more coffee at Danny’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So You-Know-Who finally made an appearance of sorts. Don't worry - he'll appear again.
> 
> Shout-out to the Jessica Jones S2 writers for complete SCREWING OVER THE RELATIONSHIPS IN THIS CHAPTER. Much appreciated, guys. For reals.


	9. Sophie Scholl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon has some explaining to do to her allies while her enemies find out her true identity; the Skull's daughter seeks allies.

### Sophie Scholl

_Sophie Scholl never intended to join a resistance movement. She had a carefree childhood and a fondness for learning that helped her do well in school. She was in secondary school when she noticed that not all of her teachers believed what they were teaching; she also noticed that several family – her father and brother among them – and friends didn’t believe it, either. She soon learned to recognize Nazi indoctrination in her school. A lover of theology and philosophy, she began to discuss with other dissidents what an individual was morally and ethically obligated to do in a dictatorship._

_Upon finding a pamphlet written by the resistance group, the White Rose, she realized her brother Hans was part of the movement and insisted on helping. The White Rose was composed of similarly-minded students using passive resistance; their pamphlets advocated for freedom, condemned Nazi tyranny, and encouraged people to resist the Nazis. As the only woman in the group, Sophie was invaluable – she was far less likely to be searched than the men in the group._

_She and her brother were spotted distributing pamphlets at a university. Arrested, the Gestapo investigated their contacts and soon uncovered the rest of the group. All of them were resolute and defiant during their trials, earning grudging respect and admiration._

_Nonetheless, she, Hans, and others of the group were executed before the end of the war. Sophie’s last words were “Die Sonne scheint noch.”_

_“The sun still shines.”_

* * *

Sharon and Jessica were alone when they reached Danny’s building. Karen had gone back to work. Trish had stuck with them for a couple more blocks, before Jessica’s grunts and glares finally convinced her to leave.

“Can I ask what that was about?” Sharon had asked.

“Ask away.”

“What was that about?”

Jessica answered her by flipping her off, and Sharon made a face. Neither of them spoke again as they made their way back to Danny’s building.

At the door to the tower, Sharon let Jessica greet the doorman. Underneath the ballcap, she could feel the doorman watching her, but so long as she acted blasé and uninteresting, she figured he’d forget about her soon enough. Besides, when was the last time he’d watched TV to be on the lookout for Captain America’s girlfriend?

Jessica led the way into the lobby, and Sharon noted that another security now sat at the kiosk. He, too, looked at Sharon closely as she walked past. Sharon heard a woman talking, the sound tinny and quiet, and she looked in the direction of the noise to see a small television screen set up at the kiosk, out of sight of the door. The news was on.

“Do they usually have this much security?” Sharon murmured when they reached the elevator.

Jessica glanced over her shoulder. “Only when Danny has his friends over.”

“Let me guess. His… action buddy friends?”

At Jessica’s glare, she shrugged. “You said you don’t like the Defenders name. His buddy cops?”

Jessica punched the button for the penthouse. “I’m not too hungover to beat your ass, you know.” The button over the elevator lit up with a 23.

“-return to the story that’s dominated the news cycle today, the former SHIELD agent believed to be helping Steve-”

 _Damn it._ “I’m probably too hungover to stop you,” she offered. She turned back to the elevator and watched the television in the reflections around the elevator, straining for sounds of movement from security.

“-better known as Captain America-”

“Really?” 17. 15.

Sharon studied her for a second. “Okay, no. I’m never _that_ hungover.”

Jessica smirked. “Could have fooled me this morning.”

“-Carter, who sources within the investigation-”

The guard at the kiosk turned to look at them.

13\. 10.

“-having an affair with-”

Could she even have an affair with someone when neither of them were in a relationship?

7\. 6. 5.

She focused on keeping her breathing steady. She was just an ordinary visitor, no one of note.

Why, oh why, did they have to keep saying she and Steve were together? She could only hope they didn’t drag in-

“-Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers’ former girlfriend and great-aunt of-”

Goddamn it.

The elevator dinged, and Sharon forced herself not to throw herself bodily inside.

Jessica leaned against the wall beside her. “I’m feeling better about my life now.”

Sharon stared at her mutely.

The elevator doors opened onto the same penthouse as before, but the atmosphere was no longer welcoming. While Luke, Claire, Danny, and Colleen were arranged in the seating area in front of the TV, none of them smiled or looked at her kindly when she came in. 

Jessica strode past her and dropped into a chair. She set her boots on the table and grabbed the remote, putting the news on mute.

Sharon didn’t walk over as quickly, nor as assuredly. Her training told her to adhere to the role she’d taken up, but she was smart enough to know that wouldn’t work here. Jessica knew the truth. And if Sharon lied now, the Defenders might trust the news more than they would Sharon herself. When she reached the seating area, she looked from her picture on the television to the Defenders. “I lied because I was undercover and didn’t know if I could trust you yet.”

“So all of that’s true?” Danny asked, waving a hand toward the television. “You’re Captain America’s girlfriend?

“No,” she said, far too quickly. Her jaw snapped shut, afraid of having revealed too much. But that was just it, wasn’t it? If she wanted them as allies – at the very least, allies – she had to reveal something of herself. She hesitated, trying to decide how, and more importantly, how _much_ to tell them. 

“We’re- Not anymore,” she said at last. Realizing she still wore her hat and sunglasses, she abruptly took them off and set them on the table. SHIELD Academy had drilled it into their heads – people are less likely to trust you when they can’t see your eyes. Baseball caps and keeping hands in pockets also suggested that you were withholding. She told herself that they’d have to see her face if she wanted them to believe her, but the truth was the glasses and cap made her feel like she was still hidden away. Comfortable. She didn’t like talking about herself. One of the benefits of being a spy had always been that she could pretend to be someone else.

Now, though, there was no hiding. She needed the Defenders to believe her. She didn’t think they would sell her out, but she also couldn’t neglect the possibility. Hydra had taught her that no one was beyond suspicion.

She forced herself to meet their eyes. “My aunt, Margaret Carter – Peggy - founded SHIELD. I grew up wanting to be a SHIELD agent. So I became one. And then Hydra happened. Or the reveal of Hydra happened, I guess.” Because, shamefully, Hydra had been there all along. “After that, there was no more SHIELD. I went into the CIA. Got assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force - an experimental United Nations initiative. It had more teeth than most United Nations projects. I was working with them when the attack in Vienna happened.”

None of the Defenders spoke, and she continued. “We got a tip about where Bucky Barnes was. We got… a lot of tip. But one panned out, and my bosses were going to send in a team to bring him in, dead or alive, with no trial. There hadn’t been any real investigation, just one of the most skilled assassins in the world bombing a place for no discernible reason and getting his face caught on video surveillance. It didn’t...” She paused. “It didn’t feel right,” she admitted. “So I sent in someone who could get Barnes out alive and get answers as to what was going on. Someone who wouldn’t be killed by Barnes in the process.” She shrugged. “So Steve and a friend of his went after Barnes, and all three of them got arrested.”

She stopped as Jessica moved, but instead of speaking, Jessica merely shifted her legs on the table. “Turns out, someone else was pulling strings behind the scenes. The footage of Barnes was fake. And the person who had disguised himself as Barnes to frame him disguised himself as a psychologist the UN calls on a lot. When Barnes was brought to the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre, the guy behind the strings came in and triggered Barnes – getting Barnes to JCTC had been part of the plan all along. Steve and his friend managed to subdue Barnes before he did too much damage, but that also meant removing him from the situation - we couldn’t trust the people in charge with Barnes. The guy pulling the strings got into the facility without raising any red flags. So if we were going to stop a bigger problem, we had to keep things… contained. Just us. Need-to-know. Not even I knew everything they were doing.” Just that helping them would cost her everything.

“When he was a POW, Barnes had been used to train other Winter Soldiers for Hydra. Steve and Barnes thought if the psychologist couldn’t use Barnes to complete his plan, he would try to use the other Soldiers instead. So Steve, Barnes, and their friend set out to stop them. I didn’t go with them, because I didn’t know everything. But I got them their gear, some clothes, and some food. That’s why I’ve been on the run. Because I got Steve his shield.”

“That’s it?” Claire asked. “You just… gave him his shield, and they declared you a fugitive?”

Sharon shrugged. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to be declared a fugitive.” Was it just her, or did Claire _not_ look surprised?

“And then you and Steve got together? When you met up on the run?” Luke asked.

Her jaw clenched; she tried not to glare at him. They’d done more than got together. They’d tried to live together. Damn it, why did her chest ache? “He never tried to blind me with romance so I would be some sort of pawn in his nefarious plan to not be arrested.” 

Luke shrugged. “Just saying. It _is_ kind of weird if he was with your aunt first.”

Sharon rolled her eyes, then caught herself. Rolling eyes at people was not a good way to make friends. “He and Aunt Peggy weren’t together. Ever. They had crushes on each other, but it never came to anything. They each understood where the other came from, and they supported each other, but they didn’t actually know each other that well. They were always distracted by the war.” Not that it should matter to them, but part of her, some rebellious, defensive part of her, wanted them to know. She continued, “He didn’t know who I was when we first met. He’s not- He never liked me in any way solely because I was related to her.”

“So who’s Marie Fourcade?” Colleen asked. “Is that a real person?”

Sharon frowned at her. “I didn’t kill the real Marie Fourcade and steal her identity, if that’s what you’re asking.” At Colleen’s almost-in-jest-but-not-quite shrug, Sharon exhaled softly. “Marie-Madeleine Fourcade helped out a French resistance group and ended up running things when her boss was captured. She gave the agents animal code names.” She shrugged; she’d thought it was kind of funny, and she always appreciated the women who’d fought in the Resistance during WWII. “I don’t have SHIELD resources anymore. I tend to choose aliases from resistance fighters in World War II.” She grinned a little. “Peggy always said if an agency hadn’t taken her, she’d have fought in the war without them. So... I don’t know. Because it reminds me, I guess.” Reminded her that even when things seemed bad, she could still make a difference.

Claire’s expression didn’t given an indication one way or another if her answer was acceptable. “And Stefanie Jimenez? Is she real?”

Sharon shoved her hands in her pockets. “She’s real. She was an undercover agent, was on break during the infodump. Some people tried to track down undercover SHIELD agents right after SHIELD fell, but there are still a lot missing. I’ve got nothing but free time now, so I’m helping find the ones still out there. Jimenez’s boss is dead. Nobody else knows where she is. Her last case is my only lead.”

“How many people have you found so far?” Karen asked.

“Eighty-seven,” Sharon said. “Pretty sure Jimenez is going to be eighty-eight.”

“Why do you think they’re looking for you now?” Colleen asked. “If they figured out that you helped Captain America back in 2016, why are they just coming after you now? Is it tied to Jimenez?”

Sharon made a face. “I doubt it. Jimenez was watching a white supremacist group, and white supremacists can’t rise too far in the ranks in media or most government agencies if they’re too obvious about their agenda. With the white supremacists at Shots Bar, they’re too... rough around the edges. Infiltrating the UN, infiltrating the news… Both require finesse. I’d say it’s the government, not something SHIELD-related. Maybe they’re going public to get more eyes out for me, like they did with Barnes. It was bound to happen. Everyone looked for the Avengers first. Compared to them, I’m nobody. Low priority. There’s no glory in catching me. Even now, Steve usually makes enough of a fuss to keep the pressure off. If they’re looking for me, it means they’re getting desperate.”

“For the record,” Jessica announced, “I figured out she was lying yesterday. I won’t say I trust her, but I don’t _not_ trust her.”

Sharon frowned at her. After a second, she turned her hand just enough to slyly show Jessica a raised middle finger.

“What the hell did you two do last night?” Colleen asked. “How drunk did you too get?”

“A lot. I really don’t remember most of it,” Sharon admitted, even though it wasn’t entirely true. “My head still hurts.” That much, at least, _was_ entirely true. It was better than it had been that morning, but it still _hurt._

Jessica rolled her eyes. “We just talked. A lot.”

“Talked. Right.” Colleen leaned back in the couch. “Just saying. Invite me next time.”

“So, about your underwear,” Claire said. As the others looked at her, she exclaimed, “I’m sorry! It’s just- It’s just _weird._ Is it some sort of ex-SHIELD agent uniform?”

Sharon grinned slightly. “No. It was a gift from a science friend. It’s the next best thing to bulletproof skin.” 

“Tony Stark?” Danny asked, excitement creeping into his voice.

“No,” Sharon said firmly. “After I helped Steve? No. I’ve never met Tony Stark. I doubt I ever will.” And she doubted she wanted to. She’d grown up hearing about how much trouble he got into. He might be an Avenger now, but hearing about the guys and Wanda getting thrown into the Raft hadn’t endeared him to her anymore now than he’d been endeared to her years before.

“So what now?” Luke asked, his arms crossed. “Are you going to go back on the run?”

Shaking her head, Sharon said, “I can’t. Not yet. Jimenez’s mother might not be sick and dying, but she still deserves to know what happened to her daughter.” On a more selfish not, it was the only way she was going to get another of Peggy’s files.

“Okay.” Colleen glanced at the others. “But everyone’s going to be looking for you now.”

“I can have my lawyer look into your case,” Danny offered. “Jerry’s a bear.” He nodded to Jessica. “Jess knows her. She’s Jess’s lawyer, too.”

Pressing her lips together, Sharon hesitated. “I think my case might be a little complicated. The UN, international law, treason... I can’t ask you to do that.”

Danny nodded, though he was still obviously planning on calling Jerry.

“What happens after you find Stefanie Jimenez?” Claire asked.

Sharon shrugged. “Her remains - whatever I can find of them - will be taken to her mother, who will probably be told that she died doing her duty.”

Claire shook her head“I meant with you.”

Sharon frowned, not sure she understood. “I get another agent to find.”

“Even with everybody after you?” Claire argued.

Sharon wasn’t sure how that was supposed to change anything “Yeah.”

“That’s messed up.”

Her mouth opened to say, “That’s SHIELD,” but she caught herself. Instead, she said, “What else am I going to do? Leave them where they are? They’ve got people waiting for them, people who need to know how they died, even if it hurts. They need the closure.” She hesitated. “And those agents died trying to help people. It isn’t right to abandon them. Give up on them. They deserve better.”

Sinking into the couch cushions, Claire slowly nodded. Danny followed suit, then Luke.

“Okay,” Danny announced. “We’re in.”

Sharon frowned at him. “Uh, this isn’t-”

“But first, we’ve got pizza on the way. You can tell us about Captain America while we wait.”

Colleen sighed. “Or just stay for pizza, and we’ll get to work after.”

The door buzzed, and they all froze. Danny glanced at them, then hopped up to answer the intercom. “Hello?”

“Danny, it’s Misty. You’ve got ten seconds to buzz me in.”

“Uh...” Danny looked over his shoulder at Sharon. “Sure thing, Misty. Harry? Misty’s good. Let her up.” He ended the call and looked around. “So... Misty’s cool, but she’s a cop.”

“We talked to Misty yesterday,” Jessica said, tense. “She saw Sharon.”

Disgruntled, Sharon said, “I gave her the Marie alias.”

“Still,” Claire said, “she’s reasonable.”

“She’s cool,” Colleen agreed, nodding firmly. “She’ll hear you out.”

“If you _have_ to fight your way out, though,” Jessica suggested, “don’t hurt her too bad.”

The elevator doors slid open, and Knight stepped into the room. She froze when she saw Sharon, then strode over with barely a glance at the Defenders. Sharon tried to keep her stance loose and relaxed, trying to show that she didn’t want to fight Knight.

“After working the case at Shots Bar,” Misty said with a glare, “I went back to my precinct to write a report and go home. I like to go home when I’m tired. Instead, what do I see, but a news report saying the woman I talked to yesterday before is an international fugitive. Any reason why I shouldn’t arrest you?”

“Because the news report also said I’m highly dangerous?” Sharon asked hopefully.

At Knight’s flat look, Sharon grunted and waved her to a seat.

“We’re apparently waiting for pizza, and I’d rather fill you in than talk about Captain America.”

Knight looked at the others, most of the tension leaving her shoulders. Evidently, she trusted the Defenders enough to hear Sharon out. “This had better be good,” she warned as she found a place to sit beside Colleen, and Sharon sighed. 

“So. For the second time...”

* * *

“Admit it. At least one of those girls is a freak of nature,” Jeff said. His arm was in a sling. He walked with a limp. He had an awful-looking bruise on his forehead.

The bartender nodded mutely. Though his expression didn’t change, the fact that it didn’t change at all indicated that he had already heard this before and wasn’t impressed.

“Most of the guys aren’t gonna be out of the hospital for another week at least. I’m gonna have to delve into the special funds just to get the place back together. Hell. Might be cheaper to start someplace new. Away from all the darkies.”

The bartender frowned. “Special funds? I thought you forwarded all of that.”

Jeff shrugged. “They don’t need that much money. We do. ‘Course, I can’t get to the money ‘til those cops clear out. Jerry said he tried to get some of it for me, but there was some black bitch there watching everything they did. I’m gonna have to go in tonight.”

His frown deepened. “We agreed when I came onboard that I would handle fundraising, and you’d handle getting them their supplies.”

Jeff shrugged again, hard enough to make him flinch. “Not like it’s gonna make any difference, right? They’ve been trying to build one of those damn things for seventy years now. Not like a lack of money is what’s stopping them. SHIELD even funded them back in the day, and still nothing. They lost the cushy government funding, and we got involved. Less money, same results.” He stopped as the other man turned toward a coffeeshop. His face fell. “Ugh. Here? Really?”

“I want a coffee. They have coffee. So yes. Here.”

Grudgingly, Jeff followed him inside. He shifted from foot to foot, then quickly back again as pain shot up his leg. He glared around the room. “This place is full of liberals, you know.”

“That means less than they think,” the man said calmly. “None of these people would ever take a bullet for someone else, least of all someone who’s different than they are. Now shut up.” He scanned the menu on the wall behind the counter, but his eye was drawn to a television hanging in the upper corner beside the menu. He’d only caught a glimpse of the news segment as it ended, but he could have sworn... “Change of plans,” he said harshly. “Come on.” He spun and walked off at a quick pace.

Jeff’s limp grew more pronounced as he struggled to keep up. He followed the other man into a pawn shop, one of the many in New York with bars on the windows and various junk lining the shelves. He nodded to the man behind the counter; this was a somewhat popular place with the Shots Bar crowd. “Johnny.” As soon as the door closed behind them, he wheeled on the bartender and demanded, “What the _hell?_ ”

The bartender ignored him, speaking instead to the man behind the counter as Jeff seethed. “Got a TV we can watch for a couple minutes? We’ll pay.” Johnny nodded and pointed to a television behind the counter, stationed so he could watch when times were slow. “I’ll give you fifty to turn it to the news.”

Johnny looked at him as if he were crazy, but the money was motivation enough for him to pull out the remote.

“No,” the bartender said as the worker flipped through channels, gesturing for him to keep going. “Next. Next. Ne- Stop!”

Together, he and Jeff watched the tail end of the news segment that Sharon and the others had seen earlier in the day.

“Hey,” Jeff asked. “Isn’t that that chick? The one with the superpowers?”

“Sharon Carter,” the bartender said. “Yeah. That’s her.” He pushed himself away from the counter, deep in thought. “Come on, Jeff.” He led the way out, with Johnny yelling about the fifty dollars behind him. The bartender turned and yelled back, “You didn’t seriously expect me to pay for you to change the channel, did you?”

“Asshole!”

The bartender ignored him and kept going. 

“Hey! That guy fences for us!” Jeff hurried after the bartender, trying to ignore the ever-increasing pain in his leg. “Okay, man. What the _hell_ is going on?”

“We’ve got ex-SHIELD, ex-CIA, and possibly current an Avenger-girlfriend on our ass,” the bartender said, sounding weirdly cheerful. “Someone sent her. The wisest option is to close up shop and start over somewhere else. But first, we’re going to need that money.”

“The money,” Jeff echoed.

The bartender nodded. “We’ll get it tonight and clear out tomorrow.”

“What about the cops?”

The bartender shrugged. “What about them? Meet me there at one tonight. And Jeff?” He lowered his voice so passersby wouldn’t hear. “If you tell anybody, I’ll kill you.”

Jeff grinned. “Taking the money and leaving the others high and dry. I like it.” The bartender flashed him a smile and disappeared into the crowd, and Jeff’s grin faded. “Psycho,” he muttered.

* * *

The congregation hall was painted white, the wooden supports gray and aged. Flecks of paint were missing, and tree branches that leaned in close enough to brush against the roof hid the missing tiles. Beside the door was a painted emblem of a knight astride a horse, small enough that it was only visible when people got closer. There wasn’t a parking lot so much as a small area where dirt had been pounded down into a somewhat flat surface; the cars that weren’t parked in the dirt created their own spaces in the overgrown grass. None of the cars were new. The oak doors at the front of the building were large and heavy-looking. They wouldn’t have looked out of place at the convent, despite how worn they were.

Sinthea’s hands were sweaty. She wished Susan weren’t standing nearby, watching her.

“What are you waiting for?” Susan asked. “This is your time. Your moment.”

Sinthea resisted the urge to wipe her palms on her black trousers or tug at the tight collar of her stiff black coat. “They don’t know me. Father never told them about me. _You_ never told them about me.”

Susan moved to stand in front of her. Placing her hands on Sinthea’s shoulders, she said, “Your father was unheard of before he joined Hydra. He made his mark. He was firm, he was strong. People followed him because they recognized greatness. Be firm, be strong, and they will follow you. You must not be followed because of who your father is. You must make yourself, as he made himself. Now go. The time is come.” She gripped one of the door handles to pull it open, and looked to Sinthea.

Sinthea took a breath. Exhaling, she took another. But she doubted Susan would let her dawdle longer. She gave a nod.

Susan opened the door, and Sinthea paused as she took in the overly-bright light inside, the underlying staleness in the air that smelled of mold an acrid, lemony-pine scent, and stepped inside. The small building was full of people of various ages, some old enough to be bent and haggard and gray, others rosy-cheeked toddlers who played with toys at their parents’ feet. Most people sat in folding chairs arranged in loose rows and tucked around the room. There was a table at the back of the room on Sinthea’s left with juice, water, a barely-touched casserole, and an almost-gone cookie sheet. Sinthea pulled her eyes away from the table as everyone turned in their seats to look at her.

“- Jenny Halpin’s still looking for volunteers for our bake sale,” the man at the front intoned gravely from a podium, reading from a sheet of paper. “Right now, she’s only got two people helping her, and they’re not going to be able to bake enough to get us a new air conditioner. You know how hot it can get in here in August - so if you don’t want your clothes sticking to you with sweat this year, you’d better sign up.”

He glanced upward to see what the commotion was; his eyes fell on Sinthea, and he straightened. “May I help you?”

Sinthea raised her chin. “You can move.” Her hands started to tremble, and she clasped her hands behind her back as she strode forward. She tried to keep her stride purposeful and strong.

“Excuse me?” he asked, incredulous.

“Move,” she repeated. She pushed him away from the podium and took her rightful place, looking out over the gathering. These were not the glorious and able servants that followed her father, but she would have to make do. They looked back at her with puckered and irritated expressions. Susan had come in after her, watching silently. Sinthea could feel her judgement from here.

“I am Sinthea Schmidt,” she announced. Her hands trembled again, and she clasped the podium. “I am the daughter of Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull. Your organization was birthed of Hydra, and I am here to bring you home.”

Silence fell; no one moved. And then, someone in the audience snorted.

The man she’d pushed tried to gently shove her away. “That’s very nice, miss, but we were in the middle of a meeting.”

Sinthea gripped the podium harder. “Making announcements about baking sales? I am my father’s heir. I will remake the world in his vision. I will lead you to glory!”

“Sure, you will, sweetheart,” he told her. “Why don’t you go get yourself something to eat? Or go down to the hospital and get some help?”

Susan stepped forward. “She is the true heir of the Red Skull.” Her deep voice filled the room.

Eyes turned toward her, and Sinthea, her hands a vise on the podium, allowed herself a small breath of relief.

“The Red Skull prized scientific advancement. He had his DNA harvested with the aim of creating an army of individuals who would be strong like him, who could lead as he did. After he fell on the Valkyrie, his loyal followers set about using his DNA to create his heir; Sinthea is the only offspring of the Red Skull, his only child. His only heir.”

The man stared at Susan in disbelief. “What is she, twelve? And who are you?” This time, his shove was enough for the podium to topple over. Sinthea cried out as her fingers were trapped beneath the wood. “Get out of here. I see you here again, I’m calling the cops.”

“You are being unwise,” Susan murmured. “You should respect the Red Skull’s heir.”

“Or else, what? She’ll throw her diaper at me?” the man sneered. “Boys. Get them out of here.”

Various men around the room got to their feet.

Susan held up a hand. “Do not bother. We will return. Sinthea, come.”

The man sneered again, showing Sinthea his teeth. She stared up at him, her eyes wide with fear, then hastily pulled her hand out from beneath the podium. The pain made her fingers feel like they were burning. She clutched them to her chest, realizing too late how weak the gesture made her appear. She forced her hands to her sides.

The man righted the podium.

“I’m- I’m the daughter of Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull,” Sinthea tried again.

“And I’m an Olympic swimmer,” the man responded. “Get out.”

Sinthea looked to Susan, who nodded. She bolted to her feet and hurried the first few steps before remembering that she was representing her father. She stopped, drew a deep breath, and forced herself to lift her chin and walk solemnly out of the building, her jaw tight to keep her trembling at bay. As soon as she was out of sight, her hands started shaking.

“They were unworthy of you,” Susan said calmly.

“They wouldn’t even listen!”

“The next ones will, and these ones will regret not following you when they could have.”

Susan spoke calmly, convincingly. Gradually, Sinthea’s tremors subsided.

Finally, she nodded. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Okay. Let’s find some others.” As they walked toward their rental car, she looked over her shoulder, where a teenage boy flipped her off from a window. “What if we killed them all?”

“Not yet,” Susan said. “You need more power first. Allies. You’ll get some. It was your father’s will.”

Sinthea wondered how Susan knew what her father’s will was, given that neither of them had ever spoken to him. But she couldn’t doubt Susan. No one ever did.


	10. Sophie Scholl ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke asks Sharon for help with an acquaintance. Meanwhile, Sharon's acquaintances dig for clues, and allies she hasn't met yet take something from her that she wants.

As much as she loved New York during the day, with its bustle and noise and life, it was night that the city’s beauty truly came to the forefront. The height of Danny’s balcony didn’t hurt the city appear more beautiful and peaceful, either. Sounds of traffic and conversations bounced off the buildings. The lights of the city overwhelmed the stars overhead, and it was left to office and apartment lights to provide an imitation of starlight while traffic lights twinkled and car lights flitted through the city like meteors. As the city cooled, the daytime smells faded, enough that Sharon could take a deep breath without thinking of garbage. Or maybe, she thought ruefully, she’d stayed in New York so long that she was now accustomed to the scent.

She leaned against the railing, trying to enjoy the fleeting moment as much as she could. With her identity on the news, she’d have to get creative if she wanted to avoid arrest, and she faced new challenges in finding Jimenez. She’d have to rely more heavily on outside sources, and as much as she liked the Defenders, and despite how she almost enjoyed her time with Jessica, she was still painfully aware that they were civilians. Not just that, but they were civilians with roots in the city. Knight was even a cop. If they got caught helping her, they could lose everything. She watched the taxis jostle each other in the street. There were other options, but under the circumstances, she was loathe to choose them. Having civilians and bad guys on her ass was bad enough. She didn’t want to have to take flack from her allies, too.

She heard the door open behind her and glanced over her shoulder, where the Defenders huddled around the table. Minus Luke, who let the door close behind him as he came to join her.

“You sure you should be out here?” Luke asked. He stood at the balcony at her side and looked out over the city.

Sharon jokingly tipping her baseball cap to him in greeting. “Seemed a crime not to spend some time out here while I could. Not treason-level crime, but, you know. Have to choose my crimes wisely so I can make a good impression on the judge.”

Luke raised an eyebrow, not sure if he should smile at that.

“I don’t get a lot of chances to enjoy a place,” she said, losing the mirth. “And I love New York. It’s gorgeous.” Someone below yelled colorfully at someone else, the shout only partly lost by a honking horn. “And so lively,” she added lightly.

“And it has a lot of people who could look outside and see you right now.”

Sharon shrugged. “Sunglasses, baseball hat. I’m practically invisible.” Or at least, she’d better be. If this disguise could work for Steve, it could work for her. Sunglasses at night might strike people as odd, but they always seemed to make the disguise infallible.

Luke turned to lean against the railing. “So you know Captain America.”

She rolled her eyes. Realizing he couldn’t see through the sunglasses, she said, “Hold on.” She took off her sunglasses, faced him so he could see, and exagerratedly rolled her eyes again. “I also know Clint Barton now, but you never hear anybody ask about him.”

“‘Cause nobody knows about him. He’s a guy that shoots arrows on a team full of people with superpowers,” Luke scoffed.

“Luke. Behold.” She rolled her eyes again, this time harder than before. “Sam Wilson has no superpowers. Natasha Romanoff has no superpowers. Tony Stark has no superpowers. They’re just very well trained individuals who came together for the common good. Or smart and rich.”

“The common good,” Luke echoed.

His tone suggested he didn’t entirely believe her, and she frowned at him. “Yeah. Unless you, you know, wanted the Chitauri to kill a bunch of people. Or Hydra to take over.”

Luke shook his head. “No, I’ll admit that was good. I was thinking more about Sokovia, how many more people could have died because Tony Stark made a homicidal robot. Or about how the Avengers seem to create some problems themselves – like that fight at the airport that cost millions of dollars, or the people who died in Lagos because the witchy one couldn’t contain the explosion.”

They eyed each other, and the silence between them stretched. At length, Sharon said, “This isn’t going to be a jokey talk, is it.”

Luke shrugged. “I was just curious where you stand on that. What they did. How much they got to do.”

Sharon leaned against the balcony railing to face him. “Where I stand. I supported the Accords, if that’s what you’re asking. Maybe not in their final form, but I recognized the need for them. They had no oversight but near limitless power. I supported having safeguards in place. Wanda Maximoff didn’t fully understand her power. The Hulk was nearly impossible to control - even the Avengers had trouble.” The Hulk was a moot point now, though. No one had seen him in years.

“But you helped Steve Rogers,” Luke pointed out.

“Yeah, but that wasn’t about the Accords.” At Luke’s disbelieving look, she said, “Really. He and Sam were officially retired at the time. Back to being civilians. Steve just can’t turn away from people who need help.” Not that she liked that about him. It was just a fact. “He got involved because Bucky would have been killed otherwise. Then he found out there were more people who were like the Winter Soldier, but more violent.” She frowned at the street below. “He refused to sign the Accords because he thought red tape would stop the Avengers from helping people. And sure enough, people tried to stop him from helping. Wouldn’t even listen to him.” And damn, but the guy could whine about it.

“Did Steve Rogers ever mention any super-soldier experiments? Ones that happened after he died?” He caught himself. “Went into the ice. Whatever.”

She let it slide. Everyone had thought Steve was dead for most of her life, too, and she’d been guilty of the same mistake. “There weren’t any after he died.”

Luke shrugged. “I think there were. I know someone. Know his family.” He hesitated, wondering how much he could tell her, and she tried to appear as trustworthy as possible. “He served in the Army. Years ago. Like Rogers. Only this guy’s aged. The guy’s daughter takes care of him. Takes care of everything. Her grandson’s a teenager now, trying to find whatever job he can get to help his mom out. They refuse to take him to a hospital. He should go, needs more care than they can give him. But they don’t take him. Just work their asses off to get anybody local they can get to look at him. Off the books. The guy’s pretty much a vegetable now.”

Sharon looked at him, wondering why he was telling her any of this.

“I went with Claire to take care of him once. They’ve got a bunch of war relics at their place. The grandson has a replica of a shield. Showed it to me. One of the early Captain America shields. A real early one. Like, before he even had a round one. That early.” He paused. “You ever hear of the Tuskegee Experiments?”

Her eyes widened faintly. She didn’t know why he was telling her about a possible other Captain America, other than to ask for help, but if he was bringing up the Tuskegee Experiments… She had a bad, bad feeling. “Yeah. Black men were infected with syphilis but weren’t told about it. The government was watching to see how it spread.”

“Spread to their wives, spread to their kids. Over a hundred of them died. Even now, our government doesn’t mind using black people as guinea pigs. That’s how I got this.” He tapped his fingers against his skin. “Tuskegee Experiment? Started happening about eighty years ago. Me? 2013.” He leaned against the railing. He seemed to avoid looking at her, but she was acutely aware that he was still watching her, registering every movement.

“You think someone’s trying to create more super soldiers?”

“If you were the US government, and you saw the need for more super soldiers, wouldn’t you try?” He turned to watch her. “The guy Claire takes care of sometimes. He’s in his nineties. Doesn’t look older than fifty.”

“Maybe it’s tall tales? My family used to tell me a lot of stories, but since so much was classified, they had to change some things.” Or so she had heard. 

“They’ve got pictures of him in the war, pictures of him after. They’ve got his birth certificate, his enlistment papers. They keep all his stuff with them. They try not to let anyone more about him than they need to, but word gets around here. Hard to keep it quiet that there might be a black superhero.” He looked rueful for a moment, and she wondered what would pop up if she googled him. She was a little disappointed in herself for not having done so already.

“If the guy’s a new super soldier, why does Claire have to visit him?”

“Looks like whatever they gave him is breaking down. He’s almost completely paralyzed. His muscles and lungs are giving out. It’s like his insides are breaking down but he can’t die.”

Sharon frowned. “And you think Steve can help?”

Luke shrugged. “I don’t know. Man like this doesn’t have a lot of places to turn. And Steve Rogers, government poster child? He might know somebody.”

Sharon ran through a list of Steve’s known associates. Outside of the Avengers and the remnants of SHIELD, none came to mind. “I might know someone,” she suggested. Even if she didn’t know someone, she was confident she knew someone who knew someone. Possible several someones who knew someone.

“Do you?” Luke asked.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye. “I have a life outside of my ex, you know.”

He eyed her for a moment, then shrugged. After a stretch of silence, he said, “There’s a theory that Rogers already knows about the experiments to create more of him.”

“No,” she said, emphatically. “If he’d known, he would have torn the whole place down. Look what he did to SHIELD.”

He watched her, and she knew she hadn’t convinced him. “Lotta people around here see him. See how other people see him, too. He’s not like us. The people who made him didn’t make him to fight for people like us.”

“He’s never been great at doing what people want him to do.” There was a hint of ruefulness in her tone. She might know as much about that as Steve’s past superior officers.

“You sure? Just ‘cause he’s got a flag on his chest doesn’t mean much to black people in this country. Wilson’s one of us. Rogers isn’t. I’m not saying Rogers is a bad guy. I know he’s supposed to be...” He raised his hands, his fingers moving out in explosive patterns. “You know. Captain America. But he’s still just a guy. A super-powered guy. And people would have killed - _did_ kill – to have one of their own.” He paused. “SHIELD must have known about it, right?”

Her jaw clenched. “No.”

Luke watched her steadily. “You really think they wouldn’t do it?”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “Even if they wanted to, they can’t. There was only one vial left of Steve’s blood after he went into the ice, and Aunt Peggy destroyed it so no one could use it.”

Seconds of silence passed. “And yet, people kept using black people like guinea pigs to make it happen. Makes me wonder who got that serum before Steve Rogers.” He pushed away from the railed. “Let me know if you know somebody who can help our black Cap.” He went inside, leaving Sharon on the balcony to look over the city and think about what Luke had said in solitude.

* * *

“You’re in luck,” Ellison said wryly as he led the way down the newspaper hallway. It was designed to look soulless and industrial, with flourescent lights that made people’s eyes hurt, and flat, gray carpet that brought to mind trampled hopes and dreams. Soullessness and trampled hopes, however, met their match in Karen’s boss, who could look monsters in the eye before asking if anyone was going to make fresh coffee. “Thanks to underpaid journalists like ourselves and unpaid interns, the paper has amassed one hell of a tip file. Everything they could get from police scanners, gossip, FOIAs, and tips from the community. They’re even organized. After the Battle of New York, we even started keeping the reports of aliens trying to read our thoughts.”

Karen brightened. She might just find something after all. She already had an idea of what to look for. “They saved everything?”

He stopped beside a door. “Don’t get too excited.” He shoved the door open and turned on a light. As the overhead fluorescents blinked to life, Karen’s face fell. Filing cabinets lined the walls and were arranged in squares throughout the room. On top of the cabinets were cardboard boxes. On top of those were scraps of papers, letters and discarded photos. Disused equipment sat in a back corner. Someone had left something that used to be food on the floor beside a cabinet; now it was a host to something black, with gray fuzz on top. “Welcome to the Tinder Box,” he told her. “Me? I wanted to burn this stuff because it’s a waste of space. But the people who never actually step foot in here – i.e., our esteemed publishers - assure me it’s vital to making the community think we care. Because our reporting doesn’t do that on its own.” His voice was dry. “Although if we ever got funding for an intern to digitize these, it would be interesting to see what turned up. But as it is now, it’s a nightmare to go through.”

She took cautious steps inside. “You said it was organized. How?”

“It’s all in this room.”

She turned to give him a fond but exasperated look.

“Most of it.” He amended. “Probably.” After a pause, he pointed to the cabinet beside the door. “We started with this one. I can’t pretend I know what people did after that. I’d recommend you talk to the receptionists, but we’ve had new ones at least six times over in the past couple years.”

Karen wandered around the room, studying the filing cabinets for labels. Some were labelled, but not all. This was going to take more work than she’d thought.

“What did you say the story was?” he asked.

“I didn’t. It’s a favor to somebody. I think it’ll pay off later.”

Most bosses wouldn’t want her to take time to do someone a favor, but Ellison understood the value of a favor paying off later. His main concern showed in what he said next. “Dangerous?”

“More dangerous than Kingpin?”

“Less dangerous than Kingpin is still dangerous,” Ellison pointed out.

Karen hesitated. “Maybe. It involves SHIELD.”

“Any connection with that SHIELD agent they’re looking for? Margaret Carter’s niece?”

Karen told herself he had no way of knowing she was helping Sharon Carter. Or maybe he did; she didn’t think Ellison would care if it meant helping the right people. And Karen thought Sharon might be the right people. Jessica seemed to somewhat like her, at least, and that had to count for something. She met his eye for several seconds, debating how much to tell him. They’d had talks about plausible deniability before, as well as the importance of protecting sources and information. Sometimes it was safer to play things close to the chest. “I’ll let you know when I have something.” She rested a hand on the handle of a cabinet, ready to get to work. Glancing at the other cabinets, though, she realized how much work could be involved. She hesitated. “Do you mind if I call someone to help me?”

“Is it the niece?” At Karen’s look, he relented. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t tell me. I’ll keep everybody busy in other parts of the building. Just… be careful.”

As was her habit, she more or less ignored the last bit.“It’s not her.”

He made a noncommittal sound and left.

Karen pulled out her phone, pulling up Trish’s number. “Hey. I need your help with something...”

* * *

“You’re sure this is the right place?” Tony asked as he stared at the small building through the Audi’s windshield. The building was nondescript, just like the drugstore across the street. Traffic hummed past intermittently. All in all, the place seemed too quiet and nondescript to be associated with a spy, but maybe that was what Sharon Carter liked about the place.

Movement in the passenger seat caught his eye. Realizing Pepper was about to open her own door, he hopped out and sped around the car so he could offer her a hand.

Even as she accepted the help, she gave him that clearly said she was trying not to be offended by what he’d said. “Have you ever known me to get something wrong?”

“Eh, you agreed to marry me,” he said lightly.

Another Audi screeched to a stop beside theirs, and they bent over, looking through their car windows to see Rhodey sitting ramrod straight in the drivers seat.

Tony and Pepper glanced at each other, then bent to look inside. Tony rapped his knuckles against the glass. “Did you just break my car?”

Rhodey looked at him as if he were crazy. He opened the door to retort, “No, I didn’t break your car!” He got to his feet. “Just wasn’t ready for that precision. Like being in a jet again.”

Tony stared at him. He wasn’t offended, but he wasn’t _not_ offended, either. “You’ve been War Machine for years.”

“Yeah, but that’s War Machine,” Rhodey said. He ran a hand over the car’s surface. “Haven’t had something that handled that well in years.”

Tony looked to Pepper. “He’s just trying to rile me up,” he said, his shoulders tensing. “He thinks I’ll get jealous if he says that. But I’m not going to get jealous, because I know he’s lying.”

“Uh-huh,” Pepper said, knowing better than to say more.

“Handles like a dream,” Rhodey added.

Tony took a breath, then gave in. He _was_ offended. A little. “The engineering genius it takes to make just _one_ of my machines... And to think that _somebody_ might believe – a _certain_ somebody – that I, Tony Stark, would skimp on the War Machine armor, designed by yours truly, just because no one ever looks at it or cares about it because it’s so drab and ugly...”

“The best machine ever,” Rhodey said fondly, patting the Audi.

As Tony turned to glare at him, Pepper took Tony’s arm and tugged him toward the bank. “Come on. Play later.”

The outside of the bank looked similar to any other bank, the bricks painted white, large potted plants on the sidewalk, small trees and maintained crawling jasmine growing elsewhere. Inside, everything was painted in soft, neutral hues. Beige walls with brown accents, gray carpet with lighter-gray chairs. Was this where people with less money kept their money? Come to think of it, Tony wondered, what did _his_ bank look like? He didn’t think he’d ever been there. 

The tellers’ area was directly in front of them, with doors on the left leading to a small conference room, and doors on the right leading to offices. Two tellers worked at their windows. One was bent over a pack of papers and checks, but the other greeted them cheerfully and waved them over.

Pepper drew up short and looked past Tony to Rhodey. “Why don’t you two wait here?”

Tony frowned at her. The glance he cast at the tellers was faintly suspicious. What did Pepper see to make her want to leave her superhero fiance behind? “Want me to look intimidating?” he suggested.

Her frown lacked its usual intensity; she was thinking about something else. She pointed to papers on a table nearby. “Draw something,” she directed. She walked away, and Tony was left starting at Rhodey.

It was Rhodey who held up one of the cheap pens that were chained to the table. “I’m sure this’ll be hours of fun for you,” he said.

Tony snatched it away, but the gesture was undermined by the chain going taut. He tugged a couple more times.

Rhodey watched and intoned, “Hours of fun.”

“I’m going to put googly eyes on the War Machine armor,” Tony told him. “And not just on the face mask.” He turned when he heard Pepper clear her throat; she waved them over, and he immediately strode over, dropping the now-forgotten pen.

The teller smiled politely as she held open a swinging door at the end of the tellers’ counter. To the right was a thick, steel vault door currently opened to reveal a wall of bars. The teller led them through the barred door, where the room was walled with boxes of various sizes, all in bronzed chrome. A metal table stood in the middle of the room, screws keeping it in place on the gray, carpeted floor. The teller pointed to a small box at Pepper’s eye level. “That one’s yours. If you need any help, just let me know.”

“Thank you,” Pepper said, her voice pleasant.

“Then just come on out when you’re ready. Let me know if you need anything!” That said, she closed the vault nearly all the way to give them some privacy, and Tony, Pepper, and Rhodey were left alone inside.

“Box thirteen,” Pepper said. Pepper and Rhodey immediately turned to different walls, and after a moment, Tony did the same. 

“Why aren’t these boxes not in numerical order?” he demanded.

“To slow down people like us,” Pepper explained, “who are opening someone else’s safe deposit box.”

“They realize that they just... let us in here,” Tony pointed out.

Pepper shrugged. “They don’t know we have someone else’s key.”

“How’d you convince them to let us in here, anyway?”

“We’ve got a box here now.”

“Huh,” Tony mused, already thinking of what he could put in it. He glanced at the box the teller had pointed out, measuring it.

“Found it,” Rhodey said from the other side of the room. “Box thirteen.” He pointed to a box near the floor, over ten inches tall and at least five inches wide.

Pepper, looking at it, held the key out to Tony.

He glanced at her in confusion.

“I’m wearing a skirt,” she explained. “And heels.”

Tony turned to Rhodey and sighed dramatically. “I’ve got the rig.”

“I designed it for full movement,” Tony reminded him.

Rhodey shrugged.

Making a face, Tony grabbed the key from Pepper and knelt down to unlock the box.

“Oh. _Now_ you can look on your own,” Rhodey muttered. 

Tony shrugged. “Not so dirty here,” he said as he slid the key into the lock. “Excelsior.” He turned his head to look up at them. “Hey. What’s in the box, right? _What’s in the boooooooxxxxxxx?_ ”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “Tony.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He opened the box and twisted to look inside. With a frown, he pulled out another box, an old, battered, dark green box designed to hold files. There were smudges of dust on it, and after he set it on the table in the middle of the room, he wiped off his fingers. Rhodey and Pepper gathered around him. He took a breath, wiped off the box a little, and opened it. This was it. This was where he found out what was so important to Sharon Carter.

The box was half full of files.

“That’s it?” Rhodey asked. He moved to look in the safe deposit box again. “No weapons? No disguises?”

Tony thumbed through the files. The tabs had been typed out on a typewriter, and the ink was faded and ancient. They didn’t seem to be related, though to be fair, most of them meant nothing to him. “These are SHIELD files,” Tony said thoughtfully. “Old ones. This one’s from the SSR.” He frowned at the label. _Black Matter._

“That’s it,” Rhodey repeated with more certainty this time. The safe deposit box was empty. “ _This_ is what she holds on to. Old files.”

Pepper looked at the file over Tony’s shoulder. “No,” she said absently. “Look at the handwriting. Those notes were written by a woman. I think these were her aunt’s folders.”

Tony closed the box. Sharon Carter was on the run, he thought. And these were what she chose to protect, to leave under lock and key when she was away. These mattered to her. And if these were really Margaret Carter’s files, Tony thought he understood why. Tony might say he hated his dad, but he still lived in his dad’s houses, still more or less kept his dad’s company. Because at the end of the day, family was family. Whether he liked it or not.

“Got a piece of paper?” he asked Pepper.

She frowned at him, dug around in her purse, and pulled out a notepad. Just as Tony opened his mouth again, she added a pen.

He grinned at her and set the paper on the table. His pen hovered over it. Then, his pen kept hovering. 

He cleared his throat. “Pepper? Do you remember my phone number?”

Pepper rolled her eyes and started rattling it off as Rhodey rolled his eyes in the corner.

Done, Tony passed the paper to Rhodey and pointed to the safe deposit box. “Put that in there.” He closed the filing box.

“Wait,” Pepper said. “You’re keeping that?”

Tony nodded. “It matters to her. I need to talk to her. She’s trained to not be found, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get her to find me. This is the best way to get her to talk to me.”

Rhodey and Pepper exchanged a look. 

“What would Natasha do to you if she found out you’d taken something belonging to one of her family members?” Rhodey asked gently.

“Call me to get it back,” Tony said firmly. His movements blithe, he strode through the door. He grinned at the teller, giving her a wave as he headed out. He was almost certain that Rhodey and Pepper would leave the phone number in the box, just like he’d asked them to. He hadn’t left them many options when he walked out.

“Sir,” FRIDAY said from his pocket.

He fished out his phone. “What’s up, FRIDAY?”

“There’s something you should see about Sharon Carter.”

Tony froze on the sidewalk. He looked suspiciously back toward the bank, but no, there was no way she’d already found out what she’d done. Maybe Ross had found her after all. “What is it?”

All his active apps turned into small icons at either side of the screen, leaving the majority of the screen to show a news story. He recognized Sharon Carter’s picture; it looked like a photo ID picture for work. “Up the volume, FRIDAY.”

Pepper and Rhodey came up behind him and watched over his shoulder as the newscaster talked about Sharon Carter’s fugitive status, treason, and romantic connection to Steve Rogers.

Rhodey gave a low whistle. “They’re gunning for her.”

Tony dismissed the video with the swipe of a thumb. “They want Steve. She’s collateral damage.” He opened Pepper’s door and handed her the filing box. “Good thing we’ve got something they don’t.”

Pepper glanced at the filing box in her arms as Rhodey headed toward his car. “And if the government finds out?”

Tony shrugged. “Maybe they’ll give us conjugal visits on the Raft?”

Pepper glared at him. “Not funny.”

* * *

“I can’t believe you work like this,” Trish said, brushing some hair out of her face. She was still dressed for brunch, and Karen recognized the undercurrent of excitement in Trish’s attitude. She wasn’t the only one who was ready to get to work, she thought.

“Really?” Karen returned the files she’d been reading to the drawer and opened another. “What’s your office like?”

Trish looked around the room. “Not like anything right now.”

Karen closed her eyes. She’d forgotten that Trish had lost her job. “Sorry. Um. Yeah. This is where I’m working today. Coffee helps. And sometimes aspirin.”

Trish flipped through a file. Fortunately, everything here was dated. Unfortunately, the dates weren’t necessarily in chronological order. “I texted Jess on the way here. She’s going through police records but hasn’t found anything yet.”

Karen almost asked what was going on between the two of them, but in the end, she opted to let Trish talk on her own. She didn’t think Trish needed much pushing. She turned her attention back to the files, sifting through dates. “I’m not surprised.” Karen’s voice was faintly absent. “A lot of people don’t like talking to the police here. Too many reports come to nothing. But stick in a chance to make the news, and people are happy to report something. Some people want to get their names in the paper. Other people are want to feel like they’re making a difference. And some, I think, are just… way too nosy.” She read aloud from one of the reports. “‘My neighbor always smells like weed and listens to reggae. I’m positive he’s dealing drugs.'”

“‘I heard gunshots at approximately 1:38 am last night,'” Trish joined in nearby. “‘This neighborhood is going to the dogs. Something must be done.'”

The two continued to slog through, occasionally sharing the more amusing complaints they got until they had to take a break. After stretching her back, Karen offered to get them some coffees. While she was gone, Trish kept working, though she had to stop a couple times to force herself to pay attention to what she was doing. She was glad when Karen came back, giving her something to focus on other than her thoughts about Jessica and whatever Jess had gotten herself into.

“I’m surprised no one’s come by,” Trish mused.

Karen shrugged and handed Trish one of the coffees. “Ellison - my boss - is worried that I’m going to sneak Sharon in. I think he’s keeping everyone away so they can maintain plausible deniability.” She noticed Trish’s frown. “What?”

“Nothing.” At Karen’s disbelieving expression, Trish shook her head. “Really. It’s nothing.” She set her coffee aside and turned back to the files.

Slowly, Karen did the same. After several minutes of silence, though, she gave up. Whatever was bothering Trish, she wasn’t going to talk about it without prompting. Or maybe it was that she didn’t want to talk to Karen about it. That was fine; Karen wasn’t a therapist, and she didn’t particularly want to be. But Trish and Jessica obviously weren’t doing well, and with the loss of Trish’s job and her public break-up and drug overdose… Talking to no one wasn’t healthy.

Karen sighed. “Who do you talk to?”

“What?”

“Well, Jessica said once that everybody always called you with their problems. But you and Jessica… You two didn’t seem as close today as you were last time I saw you. I think you wanted to go to brunch with me to get to talk to her. And maybe you really did just want to hang out. But I think you’ve had a rough year, and I don’t think anyone would blame you if you wanted to talk to people..”

Trish stared at her. “I think I’d know whether or not I needed a therapist.”

“Would you?” Karen countered. Trish’s glare was challenging; Trish was ready for a fight, and Karen didn’t want to give her one. She took a deep breath. “Never mind.”

Trish’s eyes bored into Karen’s back, but as Karen continued to work, she tried to calm down. “I just don’t trust Sharon.”

“You’re jealous.”

Trish huffed. “I’m not jealous.”

“You’re jealous Jessica went binge-drinking with her and not with you, that Jessica’s hanging out with her and not with you, that Jessica gets along with her.”

Trish made a sound that could have been a laugh in a more pleasant conversation. “Jessica’s my sister. Sharon’s just… a client. Or something.”

“And Sharon might be the person Jessica talked to. Maybe even about what happened between you two.” Karen looked over her shoulder. “You get why, right?”

Trish pursed her lips.

“Because Sharon isn’t you. You’re right. She isn’t Jessica’s sister, she’s your sister. And whatever happened between you two, it’s obvious you’re both hurt. The deeper the trust, the deeper the wound. And she doesn’t have that with Sharon. Sharon will leave. One way or another, she’ll have to. But you won’t. Because you two are sisters.” Weird, weird sisters. “And whatever’s going on between you two, you’ll work it out. But in the meantime, you need to find someone to talk to. You’re smart enough to know that what you’re doing right now isn’t helping you, and might actually be hurting you.”

Trish frowned at her.

Karen pulled out another file, and Trish was reaching for another of her own. Karen could only hope that Trish was actually paying attention to what she read.

“Wait,” Karen said. “Wait. I think this is it.” As Trish hurried over, she said, “It’s about a bunch of Nazis beating up a woman and dragging her into a building. The caller didn’t want to tell the cops because the cops never do anything about them. The dates check out.” She closed the drawer but kept the page. “Call Jessica and ask her to look up that address,” Karen said. She headed toward the door.

Trish followed in her footsteps. “I do _not_ need therapy,” she muttered, mostly for her own benefit.


	11. Sophie Scholl iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One chapter, two bodies.

Sharon opened her eyes to find that, though she was still in Danny’s penthouse, everything seemed to have changed. She looked around curiously. She was still on the couch, but someone had thrown a blanket over her. She sat up on the sofa, looking around in confusion. She didn’t feel as if she’d slept at all, but unlike minutes before – it felt like minutes before – she was alone. The television and all the lights were turned off. It was still dark outside – or at least, as dark as New York got at night.

Realistically, she knew she must have fallen asleep. Which meant she needed sleep more urgently than she realized. She didn’t even feel rested at all. She frowned down at the blanket as if it were to blame, then gathered herself together and set about folding it and cleaning up after herself. She was just lucky she had fallen asleep here instead of surrounded by enemies.

Done, she looked around again and moved silently around the penthouse, wondering where the others were. Wondering if she should get back to work. Sure, everyone and their mom was hunting her, but any SHIELD agent worth their salt could work while being hunted. She didn’t feel right not seeing any of the others before she left. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if she had never disappeared before.

But maybe she had disappeared too much. When was the last time she’d been with so many people? So accepted? When she hung out with Steve and his fugitive Avengers, or with the Wakandans, it always felt like there was a barrier there. She was with them, but she could never be a part of them. But wasn’t the same thing happening here? The Defenders were the Defenders. And Sharon would never, _could_ never, be a Defender. She didn’t even want to be – Jessica was right about the name.

She heard soft sounds coming from down a hallway, the unmistakable sounds of a fight. She crept down the darkened hall to an open door. Slowly, not wanting to distract them, she peeked into the doorway to see Danny and Colleen sparring. She shifted to lean against the door frame as she watched. Both of them were highly skilled; she could tell their movements were graceful and strong despite how their movements blurred with speed. She wondered how they would match up against the Dora Milaje. She wondered how they would match up against _her._ How much she would match up against _them._ She hadn’t sparred with someone friendly in a while. Maybe she could ask?

And then, suddenly, Colleen glanced at her, and both of them stopped and looked at her. Neither of them were even breathing heavily. She immediately schooled her features to look less desperate and hungry.

“Hey,” Danny greeted her. “Want anything? We’ve got tons of snacks. And a spare bedroom, if you-”

Sharon shook her head, alarmed at being shown so much kindness. “I just woke up. Wondering where everyone was. Debating going back out, seeing what I can find.”

Colleen looked at Danny out of the corner of her eye. “Jessica and Misty are looking into it.”

She hesitated, not sure she liked that any more than she did waking up alone. She hadn’t briefed them on what to do, wasn’t sure what methods they were using. What would she put in her notebook for Fury? “It might be better for me to do this alone,” she said slowly. Going alone would be better than being shoved out of her own investigation.

Danny made a dismissive sound. “Are you kidding? It’s great having people help you.”

“Unless you’re not used to it,” Colleen cut in with a glance at Danny. She looked tack at Sharon. “Your life doesn’t seem to leave a lot of time for friends.”

Sharon grinned weakly. “Not really, no. I’ve got a sort-of family, but I haven’t really talked to them since I went on the run. Just updates so they know I’m alive.”

“No friends?” Danny asked. “At all?”

Sharon shrugged. “I mean, I _have_ friends. But we’re kind of scattered right now.” And a lot of them were dead. She’d never reached pre-Hydra-reveal levels of friends. Not that she’d tried. She managed another weak grin.

Colleen looked at Danny from the corner of her eye. 

“Want to meditate?” he offered. “That always helps me.”

Sharon made a face. “Yeah, no. Thanks, but meditation and therapy tend to make me angry. And you know what they say - you won’t like me when I’m angry.” She grinned, but they didn’t get the joke, and her grin faded.

“Maybe some tea, then,” Danny suggested politely. He moved past her out of the room, and even as she stepped back to give him room, she was amused to see how much room he gave her. Was he like that with all women, or did it have something to do with her spending time with Jessica?

Colleen didn’t move to follow him, instead sizing Sharon up with a knowing look. She waved a hand to the mat. “Want to spar?”

She barely stopped herself from lunging forward. “I might have some energy to burn.” Sharon kept her movements measured as she toed off her shoes and moved into the room.

“I should warn you, I manage a dojo.” As Sharon neared, Colleen bowed.

Sharon grinned and returned the bow. “I should warn you. I’m not allowed to tell you about most of the people I spar with, but they’re pretty good.”

“Start out light, pick up?”

Sharon nodded. “No serious injuries. If I go to a hospital, I’ll get arrested.” Probably. It wasn’t like she didn’t know how to get out of some handcuffs.

“That’s why we have Claire. She fixes us up when we get too stupid for our own good.” Colleen nodded to her. “You’re the guest.”

Sharon nodded in acknowledgement and threw out a hit with her open palm. Colleen blocked it easily and returned one of her own. Colleen flashed her something that might have been a grin, but before Sharon could decide, she was forced to block a blow of Colleen’s. Colleen turned Sharon’s defensive block into an offensive move, grabbing Sharon’s arm and spinning behind Sharon so that Sharon almost smacked herself in the face.

Yes, Sharon thought to herself. Colleen had grinned at her. Much like Sharon was grinning to herself now. She quickly ducked under Colleen’s arm and tried to flip Colleen, who landed gracefully and dropped to kick Sharon’s feet from under her.

“Are you going easy on me?” Sharon asked, incredulous.

“Are _you_ going easy on _me?_ ” Colleen asked, curious.

They met each other’s eyes for a breath, and then they redoubled their efforts. If Sharon were honest, they were also showing off as much as they were playing around. As they got a better read on each other, they added kicks and twists, used the walls to jump off of and flip. Colleen was obviously comfortable with fighting. It was almost – dare she say it? - fun.

Sharon threw a punch and was surprised when Colleen intertwined their arms together and then went still, looking toward the door. Danny stood there holding a tray and staring at them.

Fun time over, Sharon thought ruefully. She stepped away from Colleen, and the two faced off briefly before Colleen gave Sharon a bow, and Sharon returned it.

“That was really good,” Danny complimented her. “You should come by our dojo sometime.”

Sharon glanced around the room, with its mats and polished floors and the scrolls on the walls. “Am I not... in? Your dojo?”

Colleen motioned toward the door, and Sharon followed her out as Colleen explained, “Our real dojo is the Chikara Dojo. Usually, Danny and I stay there, but Ward – Danny’s kind-of business partner, insists that Danny keep a place that looks impressive for business people.”

Danny, who had followed them, set the tray on the table in front of the television. “I hate it,” he said. “It’s not really me. Or us. I mostly just use this place for the Defenders meet-ups. Because of the security. And the bar. Jess likes the bar.”

Sharon blinked at him. “Let me get this straight. You have this place, which costs more than most people’s homes, and you’re using it as a club house?” Seeing them both sit on the floor at the table, she did as the same.

Colleen hummed and nodded. “I know, right?”

“Well, I’m going to find a different place,” Danny said. “Someplace closer to people, you know? Where we’re not so removed from everything. Something that feels less like a fish tank. But Ward was really bothering me, and it seemed to bring him some peace of mind.”

“And you some peace of mind, too,” Sharon noted. “So... you have so much money that you... buy exorbitant places just to get people off your back.”

Colleen’s expression showed she agreed more with Sharon’s line of reasoning than Danny’s.

“It’s just money,” Danny said with a shrug. Sharon and Colleen shared a silent look. Only rich people said such things. “What’s important is how it’s used. And it should be used to help people. This… helps people. Ward. Me. The Defenders. Even you.”

Sharon couldn’t argue that. It wasn’t as if anyone would ever think to look for her in Danny Rand’s penthouse.

“You should see our dojo, though,” Danny said enthusiastically. “I only own it, but Colleen manages it. She did a great job with it. It’s a great place to train.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Sharon said, amused despite herself. It was rare to meet someone with Danny’s enthusiasm in the superhero business. Maybe enthusiasm was the wrong word. Untarnished idealism, perhaps? It wasn’t wounded like Steve’s. It was still fresh and optimistic. It was nice.

And while she might have had the errant thought to ask Steve or even Bucky if Steve’s idealism might have been like that, she decided against it before the thought could even fully form.

“It _is_ a great dojo,” Colleen assured her. “And I’d say that even if I weren’t biased.”

Sharon took a sip of her tea, but it was evident from the way her eyes crinkled that she was hiding a grin. The more time she spent with them, the more she realized that these two weren’t interested in superheroics. They just wanted to help people, and everything they did led to that goal in one way or another. 

They were nearly done with their tea when Danny’s phone rang. He’d barely gotten halfway through his greeting when he fell silent, then halfway through his good-bye when he sighed and lowered the phone. “That was Jessica.”

“No,” Colleen said sarcastically.

He grinned at her. “She says they think they know where the body is.” He glanced at the windows, then at Sharon. “Will you need... I don’t know. A, um. A wig? Or-”

Sharon grinned at his obvious discomfort. “No. Hair under my cap and an oversized jacket should do the trick.”

“Your face has been all over the news all day,” Colleen reminded her. “Are you sure you don’t want to do more?”

Sharon stood and got her baseball cap from the couch. Leaning forward, she gathered her hair together and slid the cap over it. “That right there? More effort than Steve and Sam ever put into disguising themselves. Plus, they’re looking for me on my own, but since I’ll be with you two... And just in case someone _is_ paying particular attention, the jacket’s the extra bit.” She grabbed her bag. “Can I borrow one?”

“Uh, sure.”

Sharon nodded and announced dramatically, “And then we can blow this popsicle stand.”

Danny stared at her. “What?”

Her shoulders fell. “I’ll explain on the way.”

* * *

New York was, by its standard, quiet. The subway was empty save for the three of them. At the station, some people slept against walls while bleary-eyed subway staff decided it wasn’t worth their time to interact with anyone. The only cars on the streets were cruising taxis and high-end cars returning from late-night liaisons. Sharon had rarely seen so many New York storefronts closed.

Sharon kept her hands in her pockets, hunching her shoulders as she watched everything from beneath her baseball cap. But everything she saw told her that New Yorkers didn’t want to deal with strangers at all, let alone at three in the morning.

Knight caught up and fell into step beside them as they left the station. “You sure you should be out in the open?” she asked, looking sideways at Sharon.

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Sharon intoned, tapping the side of her cap.

Knight frowned at her and led them around the corner. The block was lined with office buildings and bargain-clothing and discount-food stores. Stomach-turning scents wafted from trash cans lining the street.

Up ahead, Jessica leaned against a railing along and wheelchair ramp. The building behind her was only four stories tall, with red brick and a panoply of windows trimmed with black paint. The doorways on street level were all cherry wood. The storefront behind Jessica belonged to a printing shop. Unlit neon signs hung in the window, partly blocked by signs promoting community events and special deals.

A man rounded the corner behind Jessica and stopped short when he saw Knight. 

“Oh. Come _on,_ ” he said. “Don’t you have a barbecue to get to? I don’t know anything!” He turned and quickly walked in the opposite direction. Jessica looked after him in wry amusement.

Sharon stared at him. “Uh... Who was that?”

“Turk Barrett,” Knight said, her eyes still on Turk’s back. “Local arms dealer. Heard he’s been having trouble making ends meet lately. Probably why he doesn’t want to talk to me right now.”

“You hear about the pink guns he’strying to move?” Jessica asked her as they got closer.

“Yeah. He got a huge shipment for some crime boss’s daughter, but the deal fell through. He lost a lot of money on that one.”

“Wonder why. I mean, who wouldn’t want pink guns?” Cupping her hands to her mouth, she shouted after Turk, “WE JUST HAVE A COUPLE QUESTIONS, TURK!”

He shouted back, and though the words were lost beneath the sound of a garbage truck going by, the gestures made the message clear. He hurried around the corner.

Sharon made a face. “Well, I didn’t need lip-reading for _that_.”

“There are so many rude people in New York.” Jessica turned back to them and shoved her hands in her pockets. She looked Sharon up and down. “You look like an idiot.”

“I look as I am,” Sharon said.

Jessica seemed accustomed enough to her by now that she didn’t follow up on that. Neither did the others. They followed Jessica up the stairs, with Knight sending the wheelchair ramp a withering glance.

She stopped when Jessica held the door open. She looked between Jessica and the door in confusion.

“What?” Jessica demanded. “I can hold doors open for people.”

Colleen shook her head as she walked past.

Knight leaned forward, and Jessica leaned back to avoid human contact. Spotting what she was looking for, Knight sighed. “You broke the lock?”

“When you said you wanted to be more involved,” Jessica retorted, “you didn’t say you wanted answers to stupid questions.”

Knight looked at her flatly for a long moment, then sighed. “Not dealing with this right now. Not. Dealing. With this right now.” She followed Colleen as she rubbed her forehead.

“In the basement,” Jessica called after her.

“I’ll write them a check,” Danny offered as he entered.

“Wait until you see what we’ve done with the basement.” Jessica muttered. She waited for Sharon to pass through, then checked the street for observers before she closed the door.

There was a small stairwell behind the counter of the room and to the back. Sharon followed Jessica through the swinging doors and down the stairs. Unlike the dreary, poorly-lit basement Sharon had expected, she found instead that the workers of the building had converted the space into a comfortable lounge area, complete with hardwood floors, rugs, a ping pong table, fake palm trees, chairs and couches. Two bathrooms, one for men and one for women, were at the far side of room. Claire and Karen sat in the kitchenette across from the stairs. Claire sat on the counter on her phone while Karen sat at a small table against the wall, diligently typing away on her laptop; both acknowledged the group’s entrance before returning to their tasks. As Sharon acknowledged them in turn, she noted in amusement that dirty dishes sat in the sink beneath the sign reminding people to do their dishes.

Whoever had made the sign was going to be more upset by the current state of the floor. The furniture had been shoved against a wall, and Luke was pulling up the floorboards with his bare hands to reveal the concrete underneath. He gave them a nod as they entered and tore up another floorboard. Despite how he was trying to do the work as systematically as possible, even stacking up the floorboards to the side, the floor was a shambles. The floorboards he’d ripped up appeared too damaged to be used again.

“Yeah, I’ll write that check when we’re done,” Danny murmured.

“Come _on,_ ” Knight said, seeing the damage. “Seriously?”

“I already took out the security system,” Jessica assured her. “You’re the only cop that knows we’re here.”

Knight turned to look at her, wide-eyed. “That’s not what I’m concerned about right now.” After a moment, she added, “Not the _only_ thing I’m concerned about. What happens when they find this tomorrow?”

“Vandals,” Sharon suggested. “Maybe Danny can pay in cash, and they’ll just think it’s very _rich_ vandals.”

Knight made a dismissive sound in the back of her throat before moving to join Claire and Karen.

Sharon took several seconds to look over the scene. “I’ve been out of the loop. How’d you figure this out?”

Jessica watched Luke’s progress. Sharon decided not to ask where she’d gotten the sledgehammer in her hands. “Trish and Karen looked at crime stopper tips that were called into the newspaper. Knight checked police records - her job means she gets access to multiple precincts. I looked at city permits. Trish and Karen found a tip about a woman being jumped by a group of men, and the caller didn’t think the cops would do anything because they never did anything about the neo-Nazis in the neighborhood. That gave Misty a precinct to focus on. Turns out, somebody _did_ call the cops, and a call went out. The cop who said he responded filed a report saying it was a misunderstanding. I looked more at how they would have gotten rid of a body. They could have melted it in acid or set it on fire, but I figured they’d either dump her in the river or find a way that she was less likely to turn up. Couldn’t find anything about bodies matching Jimenez’s description, so I looked at building projects and remodeling projects in the area. This building got renovated around that time – including putting down new concrete floors in the basement around that time.”

“Can you at _least_ be careful with the floorboards?” Knight asked from the other side of the room as Luke, despite his best efforts, accidentally broke another board.

Luke turned to look at her and waved to the board to his side. “You want to show me how it’s done?”

Knight leaned back in her seat, glaring at him.

Only the people on the kitchenette’s side of the room heard Colleen say, “I can kick his ass for you.”

Knight pressed her lips together. “My feet work fine. One’ll end up in his ass sooner or later.”

Danny cleared his throat. “I’ll… go help.”

Jessica sighed as Danny showed his enthusiasm, if not skill, for home improvement projects. “Anyway. There were four building and remodeling projects in the area that were pouring concrete. There would have been signs up. Concrete trucks outside. People would have known what was going on. Seemed like they’d take the easiest way, so here we are.”

Sharon frowned. “Why here and not the other three?”

“Because the other three were Kingpin’s projects, and even neo-Nazis don’t tend to be stupid enough to piss off Kingpin.”

“Kingpin?”

“Wilson Fisk. Crime lord. Daredevil put him in prison.”

Sharon nodded slowly as she pretended to remember what Jessica was talking about. The truth was, she’d been so focused on global threats that she’d ignored local news. She’d have to rectify that. She’d also have to tell someone that a crime boss was calling himself Kingpin. And who would call themselves Daredevil? Ugh. She’d have to think of someone who would enjoy the dorkiness of that.

“That,” Jessica continued, “and when I told Misty, she called the security company to ask some questions. The guard on duty at the time didn’t remember the exact date, but he remembered that after SHIELD fell, some cops came by and hung out with him, brought him food. He thought they were being nice.”

“Knight thinks the cops are in on it?” It was said as a question, but Sharon already knew the answer. In the wake of SHIELD, with neo-Nazis and their similarities and ties to Hydra, she had followed the FBI investigation into the matter. Neo-Nazis had been encouraging members to join law enforcement agencies for years. It wasn’t a surprise that some people – even many of them – had managed to get through.

Jessica didn’t move. “Part of me hopes they are. I’ve been on Misty’s bad side before - I like when she’s upset at other people instead.”

They watched in silence until Luke and Danny were almost done tearing up the floorboards. Sharon looked at Jessica. “So this was a group effort.”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “Don’t lump me in with these people.”

Sharon bit her lip to keep from grinning. “It seems like a good group of people.”

Jessica looked exasperated, then abruptly moved to join Karen and Claire.

Sharon watched her go and stopped trying to hide her grin. Joining Danny and Luke, she said, “I feel bad for just watching. What can I do?”

Luke flashed her a grin. “ _Now_ you feel bad for just watching? We’re almost done.”

“They taught how to nail timing in spy school.”

He shook his head. “We’ve got this.”

She nodded and moved to leave, but paused. Was it her imagination, or was Danny’s hand glowing yellow? She checked the lights around them, but when she looked back, the glow was gone. Frowning to herself, she went to wait with the others. “Part of me is offended that the menfolk are doing all the work while we watch,” she admitted. 

Claire shrugged. “Normally, I’d be right there with you. “But it’s not like I can taze the floor. Or hit it as hard as they do. Trust me. Let the super people do the hard work.”

Jessica sighed. “I guess that’s my cue.” She went to the far corner and planted her feet before swinging the sledgehammer downward. The floor beneath her fist cracked in a spiderweb pattern several feet around her.

“Holy shit,” Sharon muttered. Jessica moved a couple feet away and swung the sledgehammer again, forming another splintered crack. 

“Why don’t you just punch it?” Claire called.

Jessica paused to flip her off. “Don’t have unbreakable skin.”

Luke joined them in the kitchenette. “Hope that isn’t her way of asking me to help break up the floor, too.” 

“Hey.” Karen leaned toward Sharon. “Could I use you as a source?”

Sharon looked at her flatly. Source? For what?

“Not for interviews. I mean, to corroborate other stories.” At Sharon’s continued silence, she said, “I _did_ help you find Jimenez.”

“You _did_ kind of ask to help. Asked a _lot._ Wheedled, even,” Sharon pointed out. At Karen’s look, she raised her hands in surrender. “Fine. I can’t make any promises, but, yeah. I guess I owe you. If I can help, I’ll see what I can do.”

Danny went to the far corner Jessica hadn’t broken up and went to work. Now, Sharon was sure it wasn’t her imagine. Danny’s fist glowed brightly, and he punched the floor over and over, complementing Jessica’s pattern. The floor broke apart just as much when he hit it, and she could see no sign of blood or distress.

Okay, she thought. She knew super soldiers. She knew a brainwashed assassin. She knew the Black Widow and the Black Panther. She knew a guy who flew and kicked helicopters. She knew a girl who could do – for all intents and purposes – magic. Jessica has superstrength. Luke had bulletproof skin. This shouldn’t be weird at all.

“That’s the Immortal Iron Fist,” Colleen said, watching Sharon in amusement. Her tone held a faint trace of pride. “It happens when he focuses his chi.”

“Oh,” Sharon said, hoping it didn’t show that she had no idea what that meant.

Colleen waved toward the stairs as concrete dust filled the air. Karen was already halfway up the steps, with Claire close behind. Colleen followed at at a more leisurely pace, with Sharon bringing up the rear as her curiosity pulled at her. It wasn’t just Danny’s abilities that intrigued her, but the fact that Jimenez might be down there somewhere.

“He was trained for it after his parents’ plane crashed. The monks of K’un Lun took him in and trained him,” she elaborated. “They helped him become the Immortal Iron Fist. It’s kind of a big deal,” she said. She tried to sound humble, but her pride was still evident. 

Sharon looked at Colleen over her shoulder. “Was he with the monks until he came back to New York, by any chance?”

Colleen nodded.

“So that’s why he’s kind of naive,” she mused.

“Yeah.” Judging by Colleen’s expression, Sharon had only seen an inkling of his naivete. 

“Huh.” So Danny had been trained by monks to become some sort of superhero. Fury would probably kill for that. “Are there any other Iron Fists?”

“There’s only one Immortal Iron Fist.” The answer was firm.

“There’s also no K’un Lun anymore,” Claire said absently.

Sharon suspected that was probably a good thing. She doubted Colleen would agree, but Sharon knew too many people who would have done questionable things to get that power. And as much as she respected and even, on some level, loved Fury, she had doubts about telling him of Danny’s power. No one worked for Fury – or any government agency – with their naivete in tact. Even their idealism was hard to hold onto.

The pounding stopped.

“Hey.” There was an undercurrent in Jessica’s voice that Sharon hated to hear. It was too familiar to her now. She didn’t have to wonder anymore if Jimenez might have made it out somehow. Not with that voice, the one that crept in before someone shared the worst news, news of betrayal and death.

But just because she knew what she would find didn’t mean she could turn her back on it. Running away, hiding away, would help her feel better about the world, but she would be living a lie, and Jimenez would still be lying there, waiting for someone to show her the respect she deserved and take her home.

Sharon descended on the stairs when she heard Jessica call for her. Her eyes watered at the dust and debris in the air, but she forced herself forward. Through the dust, she could make out the dim shapes of the three Defenders. She could hear rubble being pushed aside, some quieter pounding. As she got closer to the human-sized forms in the clouds, she could see their features better. The one that looked like a faded version of Jessica stood while Luke and Danny crouched on the ground. Sharon looked at the hole in the ground. She was close enough now that she could see that a leg that was now exposed, most of the clothing and flesh still in tact, the combat boots still on.

Without a word, Jessica lowered herself to the floor again and resumed hitting the floor where the rest of the body had to be, the sledgehammer a pinging tap-tap-tap. Her hits were gentler now so as not to damage the body.

Between the three of them, they soon had Stefanie Jimenez free of the concrete. After five years, she had mummified more than decayed. Her eyes were sunken, the eyeballs long gone, her lips thin and drawn. Her skin was dry and wrinkled. But she was still recognizably, undeniably, Agent Stefanie Jimenez.

Jessica looked up at Sharon. Her expression was softer than usual, and Sharon refused to make eye contact. “Eighty-eight.”

Sharon nodded, turned, and walked outside.

* * *

Jeff stood with his hands on his hips and surveyed the remains of Shots Bar. The door frame where they kept track of their beatings and kills was gone, the drink sign where they’d kept the numbers of the women they’d screwed was melted and twisted in the ash, and other physical totems of memories were blackened and charred. A weaker man, he told himself, would have cried. But Jeff wasn’t weak. He wouldn’t cry. He would just kill whoever had done this and keep their skulls as decorations.

The bartender walked in, putting his wallet back in his pocket. “The real crime in this city is how cheap you can buy a cop,” he said. He stopped when he saw that Jeff was merely standing there. “Did you get the money?” There was no impatience in his tone, but there was a hint of it in his expression.

Jeff took a breath. The acrid air made him cough. When he spoke, his voice was tight. “Those animals got everything.”

“Everything but the money, right?” Jeff didn’t respond, and the man repeated, “Right?”

Jeff cleared his throat and walked slowly, almost forlornly, behind the bar. He dropped to his knees to dig under the floorboards. A couple seconds later, he cursed.

“Don’t tell me they got it.”

Jeff set a block of bills on the bar. “No. Just looks like shit.” The bills on top were singed. The entire pile was soggy.

“You didn’t put it in a box?”

“Why the hell would I put any of it in a box?” Jeff demanded. “They used to be too afraid of us to shit like this. How was I supposed to know?” Simply having it out of sight should have been enough.

“It’s not about knowing,” the bartender said. His tone implied he was hunting someone. “No one can no everything. All anyone can do is prepare.” He sighed. “Is there more? This isn’t going to do us any good.”

“Yeah, yeah. There’s more. Should be, at least. I’ve been hoarding it. Thought about doing a renovation. Adding a hot tub or something.” He leaned over, pulling up more floorboards. “Now I’m gonna have to use it to start over. Maybe get a place in Queens. Where does that weirdo in the spider pajamas hang out, again?”

The bartender sighed and pulled out a Glock 19. As he screwed on a silencer and slowly walked around the bar, he let Jeff drone on about potential uses for the money.

Jeff only stopped talking when the bullet went through his skull. He dropped to the floor.

The bartender kicked Jeff’s body to the side, revealing the money hidden beneath the floor underneath. He took a moment to enjoy the quiet. “Should have done that years ago,” he mused.


	12. Sophie Scholl iv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon gets support and another assignment as AIM experiments fail and they determine more dangerous experiments will yield the results they want.

In the print shop upstairs, only Sharon’s training as an agent made her aware of Knight following her. Knight armless shoulder jerked as if trying to stop her, but the movement barely registered in Sharon’s mind. The next thing Sharon knew, Knight was in front of her, blocking her path. “You’re not going outside looking like that.” 

Sharon didn’t meet her eyes. As Knight’s words sank in, though, she looked down at herself, at the concrete dust that covered her clothes. A breath, then a nod.

Knight’s tone softened. “What do you want to do?”

Sharon took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes. They were dry and scratchy. She couldn’t even cry for Jimenez. Not that she would now. She had to take care of this.

She took another breath. Right. She had to take care of this. “She doesn’t fit in a Ziploc bag, so it’s not like I can take her home.” She leaned against the wall and concentrated on her breathing. She had to think. Think. “Jessica said you thought cops were involved in covering this up.”

Knight’s eyes sharpened. “Yeah.”

“You know which ones?”

“I’ve got some ideas.”

Sharon rubbed the back of her neck and considered. “I need pictures of the body. And then you can use it as part of your investigation. I’ll make sure her mother knows.” She looked at Knight. “You’re going after the cops?”

Knight continued to watch her; there was a hint of suspicion there, even distrust. Sharon had seen it before. She was part of SHIELD - _had been_ part of SHIELD. The agency hadn’t been particularly popular with other law enforcement before the Trisk; they certainly weren’t popular with them afterward. “There’s no room for cops like that in any department.”

“Then how about this. I give you a crime scene. Just as it is. Body and all. You get the people who helped kill Agent Jimenez. I’ll give you backup where I can.” She paused. “That means you’ll be doing the brunt of the work, since I’m technically a fugitive. But I _will_ do what I can. If it’s contacts, back up, sending evidence to people with newfangled gadgets, any of it.”

Knight was quiet, then gave one final nod. “Go take the photos. Then you guys get out of here so I can call it in. I’ll stay here to make sure they secure the scene properly.”

Sharon nodded. She leaned her head against the wall, her eyes closed. She wanted fresh, dust-free air. But it wasn’t as if she could get it yet. She’d finally found Jimenez. Number eighty-eight. Now she had to see it through. Getting herself under control, she went back downstairs.

The dust hadn’t settled, but she took out her phone and took pictures nonetheless. Knowing Fury would want to gather all he could from them, she was careful to get multiple pictures from different angles with as much detail as she could.

Done, she went back to the kitchenette and grabbed her baseball cap. “I don’t know about you guys,” she said with false levity, “but I could really use a shower.”

* * *

While they’d been, er, _renovating_ the print shop’s basement, New York had roused itself. The print shop didn’t open for another hour and a half, but people were already rushing past on the sidewalk outside, the cacophony of the city growing in volume as everyone fought to get to places they didn’t want to be.

Sharon, as dusted off as she could be, nodded to the others. “I’ll meet you back at Danny’s.” It had taken some argument and insistence, but Sharon didn’t want any of them to be spotted with her. Or at least, that was what she told them. The truth was that she needed some time to herself. She needed to settle herself. To plan what to do next. To communicate with people she couldn’t tell the Defenders about.

She slipped out ahead of the others and matched the pace of the crowd as she walked to the subway. She snagged a seat, ignoring death glares from people around her as she dug out her phone. She sent a text with a couple photos and sent off emojis to other people in her contact list. She kept half an eye on the other passengers, but she wasn’t particularly concerned that any of them would even make eye contact. After all, it was before seven in the morning, and no one wanted to potentially converse with a bedraggled, dusty stranger on the subway.

By the time the train stopped, she’d gotten a response to the first text, and several responses to the others. She glanced at her phone before tucking it away. A block away from Danny’s place, she met up with Danny and Colleen, and together they walked to his building. Danny greeting the doorman, Harry, and talked with him about Harry’s family, but Sharon didn’t pay attention to the details. What mattered was that Danny was so effusive that the security guards never gave her a second glance. She and Colleen got on the elevator without him, and Colleen let Sharon spend the ride upstairs in silence.

In the penthouse, Colleen hesitated. “Tea?”

Sharon bit her bottom lip. “I’m going to hit the shower. Then sleep. Then eat all the food in a five-block radius. Then see where the day takes me from there.”

Colleen still looked troubled, but in the end, she shrugged and headed to the kitchen.

Sharon headed to the room they’d offered her. One that was so luxurious she would never have been able to afford it. If she _had_ been able to afford it, it would have been through some discount program, and she would have been afraid to touch anything. As it was, she was only mostly afraid to touch anything. Everything was white and pristine, from the thick down comforter on the bed to the modern-art chandelier piece overhead. The glass wall overlooking the balcony that overlooked the city might as well have been crystal. In that moment, though, she barely spared them a glance as she went into the equally expensive bathroom, with its heated mirror that didn’t fog and its shower stall big enough to dance in.

It took more effort than usual to turn on the shower and take off her clothes. Even getting into the shower felt like lifting weights. She had to force herself to wash her hair and her skin. Now, alone, with the sounds of the shower to muffle the sounds, she could cry. But to do so felt selfish and stupid. What had she expected? Of course Jimenez had been dead. Of course she hadn’t been in hiding somewhere the whole time, waiting for Sharon to find her. 

Deep in her bag was an oversized T-shirt. It wasn’t her size or her style, and it had some chili dog stains on the lower left corner. She spread it out on the counter, her fingers running along the hem.

Abruptly, she crumpled it up and shoved it back into the bag. She wasn’t with him anymore. She didn’t have the right to wear his old clothes. Grumbling to herself, she pulled out her regular pajamas, a plain T-shirt with pandas on them and mismatched shorts, and slipped them on. Before she left, she flipped off the shirt in her bag. It didn’t accomplish anything, but it made her feel marginally better.

With a sigh, she stepped out of the bathroom only to find Colleen sitting on her bed, a tray before her loaded with tea, hot chocolate, cookies, and ice cream. “I overruled you.”

Sharon stared at her, then at the tray. She hadn’t cried after finding Jimenez’s body. Surely she wouldn’t cry at this.

Colleen’s eyes fell to the floor. “I wasn’t sure what comfort food you liked, so I just grabbed a bunch of stuff. I just brought it up, so it should all be the temperature it’s supposed to be. If you want to heat something up, you know where the kitchen is. Danny and I are headed to bed, but if you want to talk...”

Sharon cleared her throat. Yeah. She was going to cry. Cool. Cool cool cool. “Uh, no. I’ll be okay.”

Colleen nodded.

Sharon held up a hand to stop her. “Hey. Thanks. For... all this.”

Colleen turned around. “It’s no big,” she said, still not looking at her. She made an uncomfortable sound. “I know what it’s like. Kind of. To be away from the people to know. To not have someone to talk to. To be disappointed. It sucks.” She waved a hand at the tray. “Enjoy the ice cream.”

Alone again, Sharon moved to the tray. She sipped at the tea, eyeing the ice cream. That was the patron food of women who were having romantic problems. She wasn’t sure this situation warranted that. Did Colleen think she was having romantic problems? Because she wasn’t. She could get rid of that damned shirt any time she wanted to. 

Or, she reasoned, maybe it was just ice cream. 

Her phone rang. She rooted through her bag and answered it after glancing at the screen. “Hey.”

“You missed check-in again,” a familiar dulcet voice told her pleasantly.

“I did not.”

“Okay. Maybe one of the children didn’t tell me. Anyway, so long as I’ve got you on the phone, let’s talk.”

Sharon scoffed. If Natasha was calling to talk, that meant she already knew. She sank onto the bed and looked through the glass at the city. “Talk.”

“That’s what friends do, isn’t it?”

Sharon was silent for a moment. It wasn’t that Natasha didn’t have friends. It was that Natasha didn’t have many _real_ friends. On mission, she was exemplary. In social situations, she treated them like missions or she stayed close to people she knew. It was like the woman had learned how to interact with people through television shows from the nineties, and upon finding out things weren’t actually like that, fell back on what she knew worked. Sharon could, on some level, understand it, but she understood better that it meant Natasha didn’t have many friends. 

Natasha was one of the SHIELD Sharon had known the longest after graduating from the Academy. They’d become friendly enough that Natasha had even encouraged Steve to date her - she still refused to say if she knew Sharon was related to Peggy at the time.

Their friendship, if it could be called that, was an odd one. They came from entirely different backgrounds. Natasha was a graduate of the Red Room, a child of the KGB. Sharon was a graduate of a private school in Richmond, Virginia and a child of SHIELD. As a child, Natasha had been the sort of threat Sharon’s family had tried so hard to protect her from, and Sharon’s family was everything Natasha had been taught to destroy piece by piece, even though the girl had secretly wanted to live in a country that didn’t treat its children as tools.

But they had both found themselves at SHIELD, trying to prove themselves. Natasha’s loyalty had long been doubted by everyone but Barton and later, Fury, and Sharon was constantly terrified of being valued only as Peggy’s legacy. They had begun talking by exchanging hints for how to navigate the space or use advanced weaponry. Over time, they had come to respect each other. More time, and their relationship had grown into cautious confidantes.

But if Natasha said they were friends, Sharon was inclined to believe her. Though it was alarming that somehow, Natasha had become better at recognizing friendships than she had. “Eighty-eight.”

Natasha was silent on the other end. 

In the silence, Sharon finished the tea. She looked from the scene outside her window to the ice cream and back again. She wasn’t that sad yet. She didn’t need ice cream.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha said. There was depth to it to show she understood. But then, Sharon had never doubted that. Natasha had seen more hardship in the spy world than Sharon ever had.

“Yeah.” Her own tone was light, blithe. Uncaring. “At least her mom will have something to bury. Although the body’s going to be tied up in an investigation for a while.”

Natasha whistled. “You got enough to qualify as a body this time?”

“I was surprised, too.” Sharon opened the door to the balcony and carried the tray to a table and set of lounge chairs by the railing. She was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke again, the lightness in her voice was gone. “I have to admit. I was stupid enough to have hope this time.”

Natasha scoffed. “You have that hope every time. And don’t take this the wrong way, but that hope is one of the better things about you.”

Even though she was on the phone, Sharon mock-shuddered. She hated this feeling. Having hope was painful. “Jesus. I’d hate to hear the worse things about me.”

“I’ve got a list.”

“Ha.” Sharon eyed the ice cream again. Instead, she grabbed the hot chocolate. She glanced around but didn’t see Colleen or Danny. “There’s a sort of mini-Avengers in New York, by the way.”

“Oh? Do they have a mini-Hulk?”

Sharon rolled her eyes. “Nah. But they’ve got some guy that can make his fist glow yellow. There’s a guy with bulletproof skin. A woman with super-strength. I don’t think the others have superpowers, but they’re all right. They helped me find Jimenez.” She hesitated. “I might have promised help with information.”

“Meaning that you promised help with information,” Natasha said, wryly. “Dangerous.” There was rustling in the background. “Okoye wants me to make sure you still have the stuff they gave you.”

“Are you kidding me? Of course I do. I know the deal - I lose that stuff, they kill me. The suit’s coming in handy, by the way.” There was condensation on the ice cream carton. Not that she’d noticed. Eating ice cream was an indulgence, a surrender. Sharon didn’t surrender.

“I’m sure they’ll be glad to hear it.” More rustling.

“Okay, I’ve got to ask. What are you doing?”

“They’ve got a great sparring center here. I’m taking advantage.”

“Multitasking,” Sharon said fondly.

“I play to my strengths. You okay?”

“Uh, yeah. I mean, I’m more famous than I was yesterday. Got any tips? I haven’t had to give anybody autographs, and Us Weekly isn’t rating my boobs, but it could just be a matter of time.” 

“Don’t remind me.”

Sharon looked down at her willowy frame, which included a chest that would never be called well-endowed. “And let’s never compare ratings.” She shrugged. “But at least I don’t have an exhibit at the Smithsonian that can’t even get my birthday right, so. You know. Could be worse.” She looked at the tray again and half-grinned. “And I’m staying with some of those Defenders I mentioned, and they made me a care package.”

The rustling noises stopped. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. I’m debating about the ice cream.” She dropped onto one of the lounge chairs and tried not to sigh at how nice it felt to relax. “Am I really sad enough for ice cream? It feels like giving up.”

“Ice cream is proven to relieve negative emotions,” Natasha pointed out. There was a long pause. “They really got you ice cream?”

“Yeah.” Sharon leaned over to give it a look. Her grin widened. “Turtle Tracks.”

“That sounds delicious,” Natasha admitted. “I think I could kill for some Turtle Tracks. The only thing the guys ever got me was when Sam locked Steve out of the bathroom and he really had to go.”

Sharon rolled her eyes. 

“Don’t roll your eyes at me.”

Sharon made a face at the phone. Somehow Natasha always knew. “How’s the blonde working out?” There was a stretch of silence on the other end. “Don’t roll your eyes at me,” she said, not knowing if Natasha was rolling her eyes or not.

Natasha sounded amused. No eye roll, then. “Eh. I’ve been blonde before. I’ll survive it again. At least I wasn’t born this way.”

“You can’t see it, but I’m flipping you off right now,” she said, not even trying to flip her off.

“Are you really,” Natasha said, still amused.

“Totally.” She sighed and leaned back in the seat. “I guess the mission counts as a success. There’s going to be an official investigation, but I know someone in the department. I think we can trust her. It’s possible we’ll even find out who killed Jimenez. Her mom might actually see justice.” And there was hope again, taunting her.

“Hm. Any chance you’ll be joining us again soon?”

“About as much chance as you joining me here for some Turtle Tracks.”

Natasha grunted. “Ouch. Given that I know how charming Sam and I are, I won’t take any offense to that. Are you working on eighty-nine yet?”

Sharon bit her lip. “No. Still have to do the trade-off with Fury.”

“Already hoping that one’s alive, aren’t you.”

Sharon grumbled. “I know, I know. Stupid.”

“Admirable.”

Sharon almost said she’d rather be there with Natasha, sparring and gossiping about people. But Sam wouldn’t be the only person around. Instead, she said, “Thanks for calling, Natasha.”

“Glad I could help.” Natasha’s voice was wry. “Eat some of that Turtle Tracks for me. And remember to check in tomorrow.”

“Will do, mom.”

Natasha whistled. “I know it’s bad when my own mother is calling _me_ mom. Good night, _Mom._ ”

Just as Natasha had doubtlessly planned, she hung up before Sharon could make a response, and Sharon couldn’t suppress a faint grin. She looked to the ice cream and shrugged. “Fine. Since it’s for you, you dork.” She grabbed the ice cream and spoon and ate until she couldn’t eat anymore.

* * *

The lab was large enough to fit twenty workstations. Each workstation contained a large flat space on the left two thirds, with the right third taken by a sink. There, the similarities stopped. Each person stored their notes differently and had different pieces of equipment, from beakers to metal discs to sprockets to tubes of liquid to Bunsen burners to unidentifiable materials. In a room that resembled a sparsely-lit nuclear bunker, a group of men surrounded one of the workstations. All of them wore yellow protective suits, complete with helmets that made them look like beekeepers. The suits showed their age and long use in various ways. Yellow duct tape covered parts of some suits; some of them bore scuff marks and stains. Nearly all of the suits showed that at some point their owners had gotten bored and started doodling on them. One had written “NO REGERTS” on his shoe as a joke, but it had backfired when he had, in fact, written “NO REGERST.”

“Are we sure it’s stable?” one of them asked. It was impossible to tell which one spoke. None of them moved, even when speaking.

“Yeah, it’s stable. A kid kicked my seat the whole time on the way back, because Gary wouldn’t let me have the window seat-”

“I told you- I need the window seat for my nausea,” Gary complained.

“ _Anyway._ ” A figure at the table turned to look at the figure that was evidently Gary, twisting his upper body to get the helmet to turn right. “The tesseract was cool with it.” He reached out and petted the glowing blue cube with a thickly gloved hand. “Good little tesseract,” he cooed.

The figure across from him lifted his head. “Are you done?” From his curt tone, he clearly considered himself the authority in the room.

“Sorry.” Quickly, the figure at the table set the tesseract on a plate that resembled a metal frying pan, because, thanks to budget cuts, it was a metal frying pan. One that was connected to wires that ran around the room, but still. The man placed another metal frying pan on top and secured it with more wires. “Okay, guys. Here’s to blowing shit up!”

The others cheered, and the figure reached to pull a switch. The leader batted his hand away and pulled it first.

The tesseract started to glow, and lights sprang to life around them. Lab equipment on desks whirred and shook. The cheers grew louder.

And then everything went dark except.

Only two lightbulbs that had lit the room previously were still on, but they flickered dangerously. The cheers died.

“What happened?” the leader asked.

“I don’t know.” Fumbling to get the frying pans detached, the man turned the tesseract over in his arms. It was dark, its sides dull blue. “I- What happened?”

“Maybe it needs another power source,” Gary suggested. “I mean, electricity isn’t really long-lasting unless it replenishes itself. Maybe we can make use atomic energy? Split an atom?” His voice was hopeful.

“Damn it, Gary, we don’t have the money to do that. Think realistically, idiot.”

Gary went silent.

“No,” the leader said slowly. “I think he’s on the right track.” Gary straightened, his hope returning. The leader waved him off. “But the tesseract is ancient. Think of the times it was born in. There wasn’t any electricity. There wasn’t any splitting atoms. There was just war and bloodshed.”

The table went quiet. After a few seconds, Gary turned from side to side as he tried to look at them. His mask managed to follow his shoulders as he made 180 turns to see the others’ masks as he sought in vain for their faces.

“It was born in war,” the leader continued, gaining steam. “It was born in death. Idiots, it needs _life force._ If we want this to work, we have to use people’s life force.”

As considerate murmuring began, Gary said, “Isn’t that going to make it more difficult to get the patent?”

The others ignored him.

* * *

New York Public Library’s Stephen A Schwarzman building was one of the more famous buildings in New York, attributed primarily to the stone lions on its steps that had served as backdrops to countless films and television shows. The library itself was a massive stone building that rivalled all others in New York, and many beyond, in understated grandeur. The Schwarzman building loomed over its inhabitants with thick stone blocks and graceful, classical arcs. The building was nearly as long as football field. The Schwarzman building might have been surrounded by skyscrapers, but it was never overshadowed by them. 

Inside, there were grand paintings on the walls and ceilings, and the stone throughout the interior was intricately accented. Huge stone staircases led to each of the building’s three floors, where visitors could view the custom-made chandeliers made to complement their respective rooms, the animals carved into the stone walls hidden throughout the library, or the magnificent ceiling in the Rose Main Reading Room. The building was as much a piece of art as anything that could ever be found inside it. 

Sharon trotted up the stone steps. Her hair was set in a messy bun, and oversized reading glasses afixed on her nose. That, her backpack, and the oversized mustard-colored sweater and long burgundy skirt made her look very much like a grad student. She didn’t look at the stone lions as she headed inside, but she gave the people she passed a cursory glance to ensure they weren’t paying her undue attention.

Once inside, she kept up the pretense of being a student, going through some shelves and picking up some books here and there. Her goal was the biography section – specifically, the section with C surnames. Finding the aisle, she browsed the shelves, drawing closer and closer to the only other person standing in the aisle. He was tall and dressed all in black. A black baseball cap hid his eyes from any cameras in the area.

“No coat?”

“Gives me away. I _am_ supposed to be dead,” Fury said. “You’ve got Jimenez.”

“Yeah, but she isn’t as portable as the others.” She set her phone, already cued for the photos, on top of a book as she took the book beside it off the shelf, flipping through it as if looking for a specific bit of information.

Fury took the phone when he picked up a book underneath it. He opened the book and pretended her phone was his, pretending he’d gotten a text so he could scroll through the pictures. After several seconds, he returned the phone and the book to the shelf, silent.

“I had help finding her, including from one of New York’s finest. Jimenez got killed by some white supremacists who worked in the bar she was staking out. They had help from cops. One of the people who helped me is going to try and identify them. You take over from there, I can’t stop you.”

The only acknowledgement she got was Fury’s eyes flicking toward her.

“The officer’s name is Misty Knight.” She took a rolled-up folder from her bag and set it on the shelf. “My report. And no, you can’t create more superheroes.”

He lifted an eyebrow, but he didn’t ask what she meant. She had to wonder if that meant he already knew. Fury had so many secrets it was impossible to guess what he knew and what he didn’t. “Saw you on the news yesterday.”

Sharon frowned. “Yeah. Yesterday was a real shit sundae.”

“I can find another place for you, if you want.”

Sharon touched her middle finger to a book in front of her. “Don’t even think it.”

Fury smirked and set two folders beside hers. It took all her power not to grab them right then and there. “I’ve been asking around about that. About why they’d pull you out of the woodwork now. Ross and his bosses think you’ve been giving Rogers and Pals some intel.”

Sharon rolled her eyes. “They’re not wrong. But they’ve got to know I’m not the only one, right? Natasha’s been getting intel from people, too.”

“Yeah, but they’ve been after Natasha for years now and haven’t gotten anything. Doesn’t help that she’s got the team with her. But you’ve never shown up with the team. They see you, they see a lone spy. No superpowers. No backup. And since you kept things on the downlow, that means they don’t know about your unofficial family. They don’t know you know me. They don’t know you’ve still got connections. They think you’re an easy target, if they manage to actually find you.”

The two fell quiet as a librarian pushed a cart past them.

Alone again, Sharon said, “Are you handling it?”

“You want me to?”

Normally, he would have jumped on it as soon as a SHIELD agent was identified. He’d even had a protocol. He’d have flooded the hotline with false tips to overwhelm the investigative team, then worked behind the scenes to tie them up in red tape, trip them up so they couldn’t get anything done. Meanwhile, the agent would simply slip away like a ghost.

But she wasn’t a SHIELD agent. And the protocol didn’t apply to former agents.

“No. I wouldn’t mind knowing who’s pulling the strings, though. I’ve seen Ross’s skill with the media - I don’t think he’s the one who set me up like this. I want to know who I’m really dealing with here.”

Fury nodded. “Have the others seen the news?”

Sharon rolled her eyes. “Yeah. They responded as well as you’d think. Natasha took it well.”

Fury harrumphed. There was a hint of pride to it. She would, he seemed to say. “How’re you holding up?”

She shrugged. “Hasn’t caused me any problems yet. But then again, they haven’t caught me yet.”

Fury nodded. “Check in. As usual. And one more thing.”

She replaced the book she was looking at and chose another. “What is it?”

“Hill needs a city map from the library. I thought it would be a fun little test. Old times’ sake.” He held up his wrist to check his watch. “And I’m going to time you.”

* * *

“I still don’t get why you couldn’t have done that yourself,” Sharon muttered as she rejoined him. She set some students’ notebooks she’d subtly borrowed on top of her report, the map on the bottom.

“I’m not as spry as I used to be. Just stylish.” He clicked a button on his watch. “Eh. Not bad. Seen you do better.”

She gave him a no-nonsense look as she picked up the notebooks, leaving the map behind. Ass. She wandered down the row, tapping the notebooks absently as if she were thinking. When she returned, her report and the map were gone. So was Fury.

She set the notebooks on top of the folders he’d left behind, then took the stack to the Rose Main Reading Room. She stopped beside a table of students and held up the notebooks. “Hi, sorry to bother you, but-”

“Those are mine!” one of the girls snapped.

“I thought they might be,” Sharon said cheerfully. “I found them over there.” She nodded toward the far corner, yet there was something about the gesture that indicated the notebooks could have been anywhere. “Thought whoever owned them couldn’t have gone far.” She handed them over.

“I haven’t been over there,” the girl said, glancing at the others.

Sharon frowned in deep concern. “I’d be careful with your stuff, then. If someone you know didn’t do it, then somebody else did. Do me a favor and stick with one of your friends until you get home, okay?” With a friendly smile, Sharon headed out, her folders under her arm. She gave the librarians and security guard at the front door a nod on the way out. She wasn’t concerned about any security guard noticing her as she passed the stone lions Patience and Fortitude; the guards saw too many faces for most of them to stand out..

Confident she wasn’t being watched, she strode into Bryant Park, through the trees toward Sixth Avenue. The tables around the fountain were all full, but a bench near the trash cans was empty. She claimed it before anyone else could and set the folders in her lap.

She allowed herself the indulgence of holding Peggy’s file, of running her fingers along it and thinking about the woman who had once held it years before. But then she drew a breath and did what she knew she had to.

The file was labelled HAUSER, ADAM.

Inside was a picture she recognized. 

The bartender from Shots Bar.

“Fu-”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since you can't say "Fuck" on the Marvel Netflix shows, that's where the episode ends. Thanks for reading!


	13. Fernande Keufgens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enemies zero in on Sharon and her allies.

# Fernande Keufgens

When Fernande was a young teenager, her father noticed the growing Nazi threat in Germany and knew it would only be a matter of time before the Nazis invaded Belgium. Having survived WWI, he foresaw the Nazis would need workers for their munitions factories. He sent Fernande to live farther away from the German border, but it wasn’t far enough. Two years after the Nazis invaded Belgium, Fernande was called home by the Nazis and told she must report to the train station that would take her to the munitions factory.

Disobedience of the Nazi Occupiers meant more than risk to the disobedient party; it meant their families were also at risk. Fernande, not wishing to put her family in harm’s way, got on the train as ordered.

That, however, was the extent of their orders, and Fernande would be damned if she made weapons for the Nazis. She leapt from the train and walked for days to her uncle’s house. Her uncle was a priest who worked with the Army of Liberation, and she demanded to join the Resistance. Nothing he could say could convince the seventeen-year-old to back down, and he relented. Fernande became a courier.

In the ensuing and countless run-ins with Nazi soldiers, she was saved not only by her quick wit, but by her father’s advice: “Never show fear to your enemy. In your best German, speak louder than they do.” Time and again, Nazis let her go on her way, thinking she was German like them.

In her time as a courier, Fernande provided her network with false identification and work papers and counterfeit food stamps. As necessary as the work was, it wasn’t glorious or sought after. But as Fernande later said, “I was determined to do nothing to help [the Germans] take over the country. You did it once to my father, you’re not going to do it to me.”

Fernande Keufgens married an American soldier after the war and is still alive today. She wrote a book about her work in WWII entitled _Girl in the Belgian Resistance_ and gives lectures about her time during the Resistance.

* * *

Pentagon  
Washington, DC

Ross’s aide scurried after him as Ross strode confidently through the hall of the Pentagon. Ross wished they’d assigned him an aide who’s name he wanted to remember, but he always had to look at the man’s name tag to see the “T Hubbert,” and the insignia on the sleeve that indicated he was a sergeant. A sergeant who seemed to have no skills and no self-assurance. Ross only spoke to him when it was absolutely necessary.

The conference room was on the second floor of D ring, and Ross mentally complimented himself on buying a coffee from Starbucks beforehand. While various offices here served coffee, most of it tasted like scalding dishwater. Nothing beat a real coffee. Though he’d give up coffee forever if it meant he could find Sharon Carter, and, through her, the fugitive Avengers.

He waited for Hubert to open the door for him and forced down the urge to check his watch as he waited. The door open at last, Ross strode through and carried his coffee to the head of the table. The other present members of the Fugitive Avengers Task Force, as he’d come to think of it, greeted him in a quiet cacophony. He nodded and greeted them in turn, one eye on the clock at the back of the room. The task force was comprised of twelve people from around the world. Most of them were in the American military, good people with experience and loyalty to justice. The others had been foisted on them by the UN in the name of transparency. Likely keeping tabs for their own governments, though. Not that he minded. He didn’t mind having help catching international fugitives. It was that sometimes they wanted to tell him what he needed to do. _That_ was what he didn’t like.

Two years ago, the twelve of them had been working toward the same goal of finding the fugitive Avengers separately. It was Mbali, the woman from Wakanda who had been tasked by T’challa to find the fugitives, who first reached out to the others and suggested working together. And now, for nearly a year, they had been consolidating resources. It hadn’t done them any good, but there were times when it seemed they were making progress. Every time, though, the fugitive Avengers slipped through their fingers. He supposed that was the risk they ran targeting a supersoldier working with one of the best spies in the world.

But they’d never targeted Sharon Carter before. Which meant that he had a good feeling about this meeting. The stories and pictures they’d released to the press had been getting airplay all over the world. The tipline they’d set up already had thousands of tips.

As the clock struck the half-hour, he straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat. All eyes focused on him. Ross nodded at General Fortean, a close friend who had recently joined the task force

Ross leaned forward. “Good morning. I’m happy to announce that we’re making progress in our search for the fugitives. Our hunt for Sharon Carter has intensified and yielded thousands of tips; we’re still getting phone calls and hits on the website that we’re sorting through as we speak.”

“You are certain that Sharon Carter will know the location of Steve Rogers and his associates?” Mbali asked. She was a round figure, with skin nearly as dark as night itself, her hair obscured under a green head wrap.

“Very,” Ross said. It wasn’t entirely a lie. If she didn’t know, it was just as well that Rogers’ sense of honor would compel him to rescue her from imprisonment, just as he had “rescued” his teammates from the Raft.

“I know she gave Rogers his shield,” Ludolf, their task force member from Germany, said. He was as thin as Steve Rogers in his pre-serum days. His black suits were always pristine, his brown hair constantly thinning. His skin was wan, but his brown eyes were sharp. “But she hasn’t been seen since. What makes you so sure they are still in contact?”

Ross turned to Ludolf. Questions like these that slowed him down were why he hated outsiders on the task force. Ludolf and Mbali were intelligent, but they preferred to know more facts than Ross could sometimes provide. Ross had to act to get answers, and Ludolf and Mbali were loath to let him act _until_ they had answers. “Too much circumstantial evidence for it all to be coincidence. We know that Romanoff is still getting intel, but we’re confident that not all of the team’s intel goes through her or any of her connections. In addition to that, none of her accounts have been touched.”

“The accounts we know about haven’t been touched,” Ludolf corrected politely.

“And those accounts wouldn’t be enough for Rogers to do everything he’s done.”

Before he could continue with why Rogers and Carter had to still be in contact, Fortean turned his chair to him. Ross reminded himself that he needed the task force. “Do you really think there’s something sexual going on? Something romantic? Or do you think it’s idealism? That Carter believes in everything that Rogers is doing?”

“I wouldn’t rule out both,” Ross said. “Ideals and romance aren’t mutually exclusive. Look at her aunt and Rogers. Everybody knows how close they were. They made an entire radio series about it.”

“And yet there is no evidence this... ‘radio series’ is built on truth,” Mbali ventured calmly. The way she quoted him made Ross wonder what they used in Wakanda; she didn’t seem familiar with radio shows. “She was the only woman around the Commandos for so long. Of course, when your country crafted its stories of your Captain America, they framed their relationship as romantic. Western countries so often have difficulty viewing women independent of a romantic role. And let us not forget. Margaret Carter was married to another man for over seventy years. It is possible Margaret Carter and Rogers never had a romance, and there is no indication this younger Carter has a romantic relationship with him. She may simply find Steve Rogers inspirational, just as so many of your countrymen have.”

“Do they not have women be in romantic relationships in _your_ country’s stories?” Fortean asked, his tone as he said “your” faintly mocking.

Mbali didn’t move her head an iota but still gave the impression that she was looking down her nose at him. “We do not forget that they are women first and lovers second.”

“Regardless,” Ross cut in, “we’re getting tips in, and we’ll be sorting through them. Once we capture Carter, we can find out exactly how much she knows. If nothing else, when Rogers finds out we have her in custody, we might be able to use her to set a trap for him.”

“Ah. You aren’t not certain then that they are in a relationship, but you _hope_ they are in a relationship.” Mbali nodded in understanding.

Ross set his hands on the table. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t make a difference. His old-fashioned sense of honor will make him want to help her even at the risk of his own safety.”

He turned and nodded to Hubert, hoping the aide remembered the directions for his presentation. Behind him, the projection screen filled with a world map filled with pins. “These are the locations we’ve had reported sightings so far.” He stood aside so that they could see the red dots scattered around the map, concentrated in major cities. He zoomed in on London. “Multiple reports here, focused around Margaret Carter’s grave. Unsurprising. We’ve got a team staking out the spot on the off-chance she returns. The pins in Venezuela play into how we know she’s still in touch with Rogers - We have reports of her there weeks before the fugitives showed up there. Likewise, we got sightings of her in the area a couple weeks before the fugitives showed up to ambush the terrorists in Afghanistan. She preceded their appearances in Europe and North America, too. At this point, it’s undeniable that she’s in contact with Rogers and is helping him plot his attacks.”

“Any reports about where she might be _now?_ ” Ludolf asked.

“We’ve had several reports in New York City from the past few days. After briefing you today, I’m going there myself to spearhead the effort.”

Hubert straightened so suddenly that he nearly fell off his stool. At Ross’s look, his eyes widened. “Uh, I think you should see this, sir. One of the reports from New York. Came with security footage.” Within a couple seconds, he had a video queued up on the screen.

The group watched silently as footage of a blonde, either Sharon Carter or a doppelganger, walked down the steps outside a bar. They watched it on loop two more times before Ross waved at the screen. “Why was she at the bar? Drinking problem?”

“Uh, witness says she was looking for someone named Stefane Jimenez.” Hubert’s fingers flew over the keys, then stopped. “Uh.”

“Say ‘uh’ one more time,” Ross warned.

Hubert swallowed. “I was just going to say, sir, that u- Um. I- Okay. I did a search for the name. Stefanie Jimenez. And- Uh- _um_ \- Stefanie Jimenez was a SHIELD agent, sir. Her name is in the infodump files. And they just- they just found her body last night. Sir. In New York.”

“Last night,” Ross repeated, thinking.

“Yes, sir.”

“Carter could still be in New York.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know that, sir, I’m just telling you what I-”

“I’m not talking to you,” Ross snapped. He turned back to the table and leaned against it as he took a deep breath. It wasn’t like him to lose his temper. There was just something about Hubert that rubbed him the wrong way. “Sharon Carter is our best lead in finding Rogers. Thank you all for coming. I’m going to New York immediately to find her. I hope to have another update for you soon.”

The others nodded their good-byes to him as he strode from the room, leaving Hubert struggling to pack everything and scurry out after him. The small group waited until the door had closed behind Ross’s aide to talk quietly about the latest developments in the case or other topics.

As she rose to leave, Mbali found Ludolf beside her.

“Is it just me,” Ludolf asked, “or is he getting desperate?”

“It is not just you,” Mbali confirmed. “I doubt the Carter woman is anything more than some Avengers fangirl. She may have helped Rogers once, but I cannot imagine the fugitive lifestyle would make her think too kindly of the man.”

Ludolf groaned. “Please, don’t remind me about fangirls. I am still trying to get Tony Stark’s autograph for my daughter.” He shrugged, and Mbali showed him a hint of a smile.

“You are a good father.” She moved her fingers, and immediately, her aide was at her side, whispering into her ear. She listened gravely. “If you will excuse me.” Ludolf bobbed in an almost-bow, and Mbali and her aide walked away.

“Alert Okoye and Nakia immediately,” Mbali murmured. “Carter must be made aware that she is compromised.”

* * *

New York, NY  
Shots Bar sat across the street, charred and hollowed out. Sharon looked it over from the hotel window. She didn’t go out of her way to hide her presence. Really, the security in the building was terrible. Even the police officer parked in front of Shots Bar was more dedicated to his book of Sudoku puzzles than he was in keeping an eye on his surroundings. 

The hotel was still officially closed, with crime scene tape strung up in the doorway. No one but the most desperate of people had even looked at the hotel even when it had been opened. Now, no one looked at it at all. If they looked around at all, they kept their eyes on the other buildings. The only thing to be said in the hotel’s favor was that, thanks to Shots Bar burning down, it now wasn’t the worst-looking building on the block.

She sent off some check-in texts while she kept an eye on the place. There was something poetic in using the hotel that Stefanie Jimenez had used to find a missing SHIELD agent. Sharon hoped Jimenez appreciated it, wherever she was.

Adam Hauser. He’d literally been in front of her, and she hadn’t even realized. She replayed their conversations in her mind. Had he known she was SHIELD? He must not have. He’d acted the bartender part through and through. Why was he still undercover? Was it because he had nothing else to do, nowhere else to go, or did he know that they were up to something? Was he still gathering intel? Was he planning to stop them on his own?

Whatever it was, she would help him end it, and then she would bring him in from the cold.

_If_ she could find him, she thought to herself. She could only hope he’d come back to Shots Bar. Destroyed or not, the bar was her only lead.

She waited until close to lunch when she saw a familiar shape make his way down the street. She straightened, then jumped into the air as her phone rang. “Jesus,” she muttered as her heart quieted again. She grabbed her phone, watching as Hauser stopped to speak to the cop outside the bar.

As soon as she answered, Nakia said, “You are compromised.”

“They got a tip?”

“That, and more. Security footage. You outside a bar. Ross is on his way to New York. He knows about Stefanie Jimenez.” She paused. “I am sorry you did not find her alive.”

“Me, too. But I’ve got a lead on the next one. Adam Hauser. Still alive. Looking at him as we speak.” 

Hauser leaned over and handed something to the cop. Was the cop some sort of ally? Had Hauser managed to find backup? Was it some sort of drop?

“That is good,” Nakia said slowly. “You are sure of him? If you need backup, I can be there within an hour.”

Sharon grinned. “As much as I would love a team-up, I think it’s best if I publicly have as little to do with Wakanda as possible.”

“Especially now, with Ross on his way.” Nakia’s voice was almost mournful. Sharon sympathized; she knew what it was like to want to get into the field. “You still have everything we’ve given you, yes?”

“Of course.” Hauser said something more to the officer and walked down the street, blending in with the other pedestrians. Sharon grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder as she headed to the door.

“Good. Try to keep it that way. Ross is… clever.”

“And annoyingly persistent,” Sharon agreed. “I understand. And I understand what’s at risk. I won’t repay you by compromising you.”

“I believe you.” As much as Nakia could. They both knew there were ways to make people talk. Still, it was the risk they both ran from time to time. “Next time you’re in town, I’ll take you out to eat. Since you paid last time. If you aren’t arrested by then.”

Sharon grinned as she hit the stairwell at a run. “Sounds great. Let me just deal with this, and I’ll be in touch.

“Of course. Stay safe.” Nakia hung up, and Sharon focused on running down the stairs, slowing down right before hitting the door to the alley behind the hotel. She tucked the phone away in her bag and cautiously pushed the door open to look both ways. Heading to the sidewalk, she held herself back out of sight of the police car and looked up and down the street. Multiple people still on the street, but none of them Hauser. Tugging her cap over her eyes, strolled to the end of the block before looking around again.

Still no sign of Hauser.

“Damn it.”

* * *

Classified, USA  
Fury double-checked to make sure his phone was off before he stepped out of the car and looked up and down the street. The block was quiet, lined with one-story ranch houses with well-kept lawns. The place reeked of the atmosphere that most parents wanted for their children, and that most teenagers hated. If he didn’t know any better, he wouldn’t have thought that a spy could ever have come from a boring, suburban neighborhood like this. On the other hand, he’d seen Philosophy majors become spies. It took all sorts, and they could come from anywhere.

He furtively checked the windows as he walked down the sidewalk toward one house in particular. This was the sort of neighborhood where black men were noticed, the sort of neighborhood where a neighborhood watch fanatic could cause a problem, especially at night. And it wasn’t as if Fury made these calls during the day when he could be easily spotted and identified. He was supposed to be dead, after all.

Once he was sure no one was watching and no cameras were turned in his direction, he headed up the walkway. The house appeared quiet, but the porch lights were on.

But the important thing was that there was a car in the driveway, a green Toyota. He could see a cross hanging from the rearview mirror.

Every time he visited a family member, the reaction was different. In the early days of SHIELD’s fall, he’d gotten mostly anger and disbelief. These days, it was mostly anger and sadness.

He rang the doorbell and stepped back so Maria Jimenez could look at him through the peephole. He thought he heard her moving through the house. Heard the noises stop on the other side of the door. And then, nothing. Seconds ticked by. He waited.

At length, the door opened.

Her hair had a couple strands of gray, but Mrs. Jimenez was still young. Or maybe he just thought that because he felt – and looked – so much older. But even if he hadn’t looked her up before this, he would have recognized Stefanie’s features in her mother’s face.

“You’re here to tell me you found her, and that she is dead.” Mrs. Jimenez’s voice was flat, calm.

He didn’t deny it. “May I come in?”

A beat passed, then another, and finally, she moved aside. He walked into a foyer with marble tiles and waited, knowing he wasn’t entirely welcome in this house. With the open floor plan, he could see into the living room, dining room, and part of the kitchen. It was decorated in whites and soft pinks, sparsely but comfortably furnished. Everything looked used, maybe even secondhand, but it still had the feeling of a vintage home style magazine. 

Mrs. Jimenez walked into the middle of the living room, her arms crossed. He took that as his cue and followed her into the living room. She turned to face the couch, and he sat there as silently directed. “Tell me what happened.”

“I can’t tell you everything.” He tried to sound regretful; it didn’t take as much effort this time as it usually did.

“I know, I know,” she said impatiently. “You’re a very secret spy person. Of course you can’t tell me everything. Tell me what you can.”

“No, I can’t tell you everything because I don’t know it myself. Yet. They’re doing an official investigation. We found her body.”

Mrs. Jimenez swayed for a moment. She sat heavily in the chair nearby. The cross she wore around her neck disappeared between her fingers.

He watched her carefully. “We found evidence that some police officers may have helped cover up the crime.”

“The police?” Her voice was sharp. She didn’t sound surprised, only offended. “Did they target her? Why Stefanie?”

She knew why the police would target Stefanie. She knew about Hydra. She knew they hadn’t only infiltrated SHIELD. She was testing him, seeing how much he would give up. She was smart, he gave her that. Tough. Wasn’t the sort to give up easy. He saw where Jimenez had gotten her grit. “We have reason to believe she was monitoring a white supremacist cell. We don’t know why yet. But we know she survived the fall of SHIELD.”

Mrs. Jimenez shrugged. “I knew that. Tell me what I don’t know.”

Fury stopped and looked at her anew. “You knew she survived?”

“Of course. She called me. Told me everything was all right, not to worry. That was after the Trisk fell.”

“You knew she survived, but you didn’t say anything?”

“Of course not,” she repeated, as if he were stupid. “You wouldn’t have looked for her otherwise. You would have thought she ran away, or that she was Hydra and just leading her poor mother around. But I knew better. My daughter would never have joined Hydra.”

He spared a couple seconds to watch her. Not many people surprised him these days.

“Not that I knew you were looking,” she continued as he continued to silently watch her. “I thought you were dead, too, until you showed up. And I admit, part of me was glad. But if Stefanie wanted people to know she was alive, she would have said so. She didn’t say so, so I didn’t say so.” She paused. “I’m glad you’re not dead,” she said politely. “Now I am, at least.”

“So am I,” he said, amused. “And not only because your daughter was one of the agents I was responsible for, and one of the agents I didn’t do enough to protect.”

She seemed taken aback by the admission. After a moment, she ventured, “You said there will be an investigation.”

“Yes.” He leaned forward and set his elbows on his knees. “I’m keeping an eye on it. They’ve identified her body.”

“Nobody’s called me,” Mrs. Jimenez said firmly.

“They’re still tied up by bureaucracy. I’m not.” He continued, his voice matter-of-fact, but not unkind. “They don’t care as much about a murder that happened years ago, especially to a SHIELD agent. But the agent I asked to help me find your daughter made some friends on the force. The agent trusts them. And while I can’t interfere directly, there are other things I can do to make sure your daughter sees justice. Also to make sure that you can bury her. We can also prove that she was a loyal SHIELD agent.”

“She was always loyal,” Mrs. Jimenez snapped. “I never doubted it.”

“I didn’t doubt, either.”

Mrs. Jimenez was quiet for several seconds. Suddenly, she stood. “Wait here.” She vanished from sight down a hallway and was gone long enough for Fury to start to fidget. When she returned, she carried a cardboard box. She handed it to him and reclaimed her seat without looking looking at him. “Two weeks after SHIELD fell, I got that in the mail. The letter that came with it said that Stefanie had noticed something odd at SHIELD, but her superior wouldn’t listen. She took a leave of absence to look into it on her own, but then SHIELD fell, and she got worried. She said she sent me some things for safekeeping. Told me to hide them but not to look at them myself. Said not to worry about her. Said she’d be fine.” Her voice caught, and her expression turned stone-like.

Fury examined the box. It was plain, unmarked cardboard, large enough for a stack of files. It was taped shut still. If Mrs. Jimenez had ever been tempted to open it, she had either suppressed the urge or covered it up incredibly well. Slowly, he tucked it under his arm. It was heavy. “For what it’s worth, Mrs. Jimenez, your daughter was a good agent.”

“I know.” The look she sent him said aloud what her voice didn’t: If her daughter hadn’t been a SHIELD agent, she would still be alive.

He got to his feet, and she followed suit. “When can I expect them to call me about Stefanie?”

“If they don’t call you by tomorrow night, give me a call.” He pulled a card from his pocket. It looked like a business card for a plumber. He hesitated. “You don’t strike me as the sort of person who’ll use this to call me at three in the morning to talk about someone stealing your parking space at work.”

She looked closely at the number. “No promises. I’ve hated you for years.” She crossed her arms, the card disappearing from sight under an elbow. “But I’ll try use it responsibly.”

Fury inclined his head toward her, then headed to his car.

He drove two blocks before he pulled over in a drugstore parking lot and pulled the box into his lap. Inside were notebooks and papers; the notebooks were similar to Sharon’s, filled with notes written in code. He flipped through, he paused when a name caught his eye. His gut twisted as he saw that Jimenez had noticed that her SO, Christopher Henderson, edited a report to understate the looming threat of a white nationalist cell. She had followed up in her spare time, dug deeper, had noticed that the cell was collecting and sending away money each month. She’d traced the money to a bar in New York. No longer trusting Henderson, not feeling comfortable enough with the evidence she had to go over Henderson’s head, she had taken a leave of absence to do some research on her own.

At the bottom of the box was a file with photographs from a place called Shots Bar. Fury flipped through them and stopped when he saw a picture of Adam Hauser.

“Damn it.”

* * *

New York, NY  
“They don’t have the body entirely exhumed yet,” Misty said as she hurried toward the police station. “They don’t have a positive ID on the body, either, because there weren’t any personal belongings on her. So we can’t officially talk to the mom yet. I’ve been going through the records to figure out who the cops helping the gang were. I’m going to go to the operators’ tomorrow and get a look at their records.”

“You think they’ll have them?” Jessica asked. Misty could hear her eating something over the phone, and she didn’t doubt there was a bottle of something alcoholic nearby. But as much as she might worry about Jessica’s liver, it wasn’t any of her business. At least Jessica was a functional alcoholic.

“Yeah, they’ve got to record everything for legal reasons. It’s all computerized now, so I’m hoping they haven’t deleted everything yet. Or that budget cuts didn’t screw us.” She turned the corner and bounced up the stairs. Immediately, before she even shoved her way through the doors, she was enveloped in the throng of activity and noise as concerned citizens, less-than-innocent civilians, cops, and techs all tried to interact with the right people while trying to avoid the wrong people. Misty shoved her way through without hesitation. “I need you to go keep an eye on the place, make sure nobody messes with the body.”

Jessica sighed.

“Come on,” Misty wheedled. “Could be fun.”

“You’re a shit liar.” Jessica hung up, and Misty sighed as she locked her phone. She was close to 70% sure Jessica would follow through.

She stopped when she came in sight of her desk. A man was sitting in front of it, white, 6‘2“, his hair grayed, almost white, and brushed back at the sides. His mustache was gray and meticulously trimmed. He wore a US Army uniform, and she didn’t have to see the insignia to know his rank. She recognized his profile from across the room. General Thaddeus Ross.

She could also guess why he was here.

She forced the tension out of her shoulders and strode over, setting her store-bought coffee on the desk. “Detective Knight. Can I help you?”

He stood and waited until she’d sat down to reclaim his seat. “Detective Knight. I’m General Thaddeus Ross. The crime scene where you found Stefanie Jimenez ties into an international investigation I’m doing into the fugitive Avengers. Can you bring me up to speed?”

She was on shaky ground, and she knew it. “I can’t tell you much. We don’t even have a positive ID yet. The call just came in early this morning. The tip that it was Stefanie Jimenez came in a little after that, but we don’t have any proof that it’s her yet.”

“Do you know who called it in?” he asked. He kept his tone polite, but there was a sense of urgency underneath.

“No, we don’t. I can play you a recording of the call.” At his nod, she pulled up the file on her computer, turned up the volume, and hit play.

Ross’s shoulders fell as the caller described finding Stefanie Jimenez’s body in a basement and where it was. “That’s a man’s voice.”

“-and don’t bother asking me anything because I don’t know _anything,_ ” the voice continued.

Misty hit pause, thinking of how easily Luke had managed to get Turk Barrett’s tone and intonation right. The guy had more skills than just being bulletproof. “Yeah. Who did you think it would be?”

“Who called in the tip that it was Stefanie Jimenez?”

Misty shrugged. “One of the detectives got a call on their cell phone. Traced the number back to an office down the street from the scene. No security cameras got anything.”

“Any details about the caller?”

“Not that I know. I can find the detective that got the call, get you in touch with them.” 

Ross opened a leather file case and pulled out a picture. He set it on Misty’s desk for her perusal. “Have you seen this woman?”

The picture was a screenshot from a security camera. Sharon was in the center of the photo, headed into the building. Misty recognized an elbow and shoe to the side. Damn it, Jessica.

Slowly, Misty shook her head. “Can’t say I do.”

“She has an interest in the Stefanie Jimenez case, so she might be poking around.” He paused.

She studied the picture a little longer. “Hey, do you think she might be working with somebody?”

“We’re not ruling anything out at this point.”

Misty nodded. “Can I keep this? I’ll get word out.”

He seemed pleased by the offer and even pulled out Sharon’s blown-up ID photo out. “And here’s my card,” he added. “If you could keep me abreast of the details.”

“Of course,” Misty said, with no intention of doing so. She took the card and looked it over. “Can I ask why you’re looking for her?”

Ross looked at her oddly. “You haven’t seen the news?”

Misty shook her head. “I’ve been dealing with murder cases for the past couple days. No time to watch TV.”

Ross nodded to the picture. “Sharon Carter. She’s a former SHIELD and CIA agent who went rogue. She’s been helping international fugitives evade justice. If you hear anything about her, give me a call before you do anything else. She may not look like much, but she’s extremely dangerous.”

Oh, she was going to _love_ telling Sharon he’d said that. Her eyes fell to the photograph again as she made sure her features betrayed nothing. “Can’t have people like that on the loose.”

“Exactly,” Ross said firmly. “I’ll let you get back to work. I’ve got to see if there’s more security footage. Between you checking on the Stefanie Jimenez case and me checking security footage, we might find her after all.”

Misty smiled. “I sure hope so,” she lied.

As soon as he was out of sight, she checked the room and then left her desk. Alone, she pulled out her phone. “Jessica. Change of plans. Ross is in town and checking security footage for Sharon. I saw your boot and elbow in the picture, but it doesn’t look like they know about you yet.”

“ _Shit._ ”

“Tell me about it.”


End file.
